Long Live the Queen of Klickitat Street
Beverly Cleary was once asked "Where are the books about the kids like us?" Then she wrote them.
Beverly Cleary died last Thursday in Carmel, California. She was 104. What this means is when she was very small, World War I broke out, and when she was eleven—the age Lana is now—Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig lead the most famous baseball team in history. Then when, she was 24, World War II broke out.
Beverly Cleary was a librarian then, bothered by the lack of interesting stories written for children. The origin story goes that a boy wrote Beverly a letter asking, "Where are the books about the kids like us?" So she wrote some, and they are how Beverly Cleary became beloved by millions.
For us, the stories were read by Mom before bedtime, leaned against the lower bunk with Tyler and I curled up around her in blankets. Cleary’s books had real characters with real conflicts, like parents worrying about money, or being dragged to church, or irritating siblings and grade school humiliations. It’s too early to call them timeless, but Cleary’s stories have a steadfast quality. I know this because I read them to Lana before bedtime some years ago, with her curled in a blanket, until she took up finishing the series on her own.
Klickitat Street was a fantastical place, but also real to us because our Grandma and Grandpa both grew up around Northeast Fremont, the thoroughfare which Klickitat parallels. They attended Bev’s alma mater, Grant High. Sometimes I imagined them or my parents in that Clearyverse. When Henry Huggins met Ribsy, I pictured the pet shops of the Hollywood District. Klickitat Street could’ve been anywhere, though, that was one of Cleary’s gifts. Beezus, Ramona, and Henry were Tom, Huck, and Becky for new generations, just more tenderly nurtured.
I keep associating Beverly with Queen Elizabeth for some reason. Maybe because they’re both old? Both distinguished institutions?
But Beverly Clearly is a Queen, of sorts, to us. Instead of knighthoods, she bestowed American children with a passion for reading. Portland writers have produced many outstanding books since Henry Huggins debuted in 1950, but Beverly paved that path. She sold 91 million stories, stamped the Rose City on literary maps, and was the first writer who made “globally renowned author” an aspiration for a middle-class Oregonian like me.
Back when I re-read her books to Lana, I felt comforted knowing Beverly was alive, still chilling near the ocean in Carmel-by-the-Sea. I was sad to know that feeling couldn’t last forever. Now here we are, years later, our first week in a post-Cleary world.
“I've had an exceptionally happy career,” Beverly Cleary told an interviewer for the Los Angeles Times in 2011. That’s the least we could hope for such a generous Queen. Long may she reign, in this life and next.