Book Review:Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary

Here I'm reviewing a classic.

"Little sisters can be difficult...this little sister is impossible!" These words on the cover pictured above couldn't describe Beatrice Quimby's*(better known as Beezus) little sister Ramona better. Ramona has the tendency to do some of the most annoying things imaginable:riding her tricycle through the house(knocking various items of furniture over as she goes), asking Beezus to read her favorite book to her a million times, pestering Beezus' friend Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy, taking bites out of half a box of apples, baking her rubber doll into Beezus' birthday cake, and inviting a zillion other little kids(each one just as annoying as her, if not moreso) over to her house for a party(unbeknownst to her parents, of course). Put simply, if it's annoying, she does it!

Cue massive scream.

Beezus tries to be patient with Ramona, but it's(dread) hard, and Beezus tends to get really exasperated with her(SHOCK!!), which makes her feel guilty, but what more can she do?

My thoughts:Although it's debatable which Ramona book is the best, this one is certainly a favorite of mine. The author's style is really good, as is the illustrator's, and Beezus and Ramona are good, interesting characters; honestly even, most of the time, Ramona comes off more as "funny-annoying" than "annoying-annoying". Beezus is portrayed well, and in later books, Ramona herself becomes more mature and relatable, even sympathetic. (The annoying/immature torch thus being passed to Howie's little sister Willa Jean.) And even though Ramona and Beezus don't see eye-to-eye most of the time, it's obvious that they really do love each other.

Ramona's only knowing how to write i's and t's(and spelling her name thus), incidentally, reminded me of this exchange from an episode of Full House:

(Stephanie is doing her homework, when Michelle walks in.)

Michelle: "Can I help? I'm good at homework."

Stephanie: "No, Michelle, I'm writing a short story for English class. You can't write, so...you can't help."

Michelle: "I can write i's and t's."

Stephanie: "Great story. 'It, it, it, it, it!'"

Speaking of Ramona's writing, some may recall the way that she would tranform the "Q" in her last name into a kitty cat starting in the book Ramona the Pest and the time in the book Ramona and Her Mother that she transformed the words with double letters in her writing book into angry faces, to express her angry(at the time) feelings:

I couldn't resist.

All in all, a good and very funny book, perfect for any Ramona fan.

*Fans of the Disney sitcom A.N.T. Farm may notice that the character Fletcher has the same last name(Quimby) as Ramona and her family. One wonders whether or not this was intentional.

Buy "it, it, it, it, it" on Amazon! :-D