As 2021 goes on we are continuously loosing people. Beverly Atlee Cleary was an American author of children and young adult fiction. Over 91 million copies of her books have been sold worldwide since her first book was published in 1950. Some of these books include; Beezus and Ramona, Henry Huggins, Ralph S. Mouse, and many more!

Cleary was born April 12th of 1916 in McMinnville, Oregon. Most of her books are set where she grew up! Cleary struggled in first grade with her reading skills, but with some work it got better. Soon, however, she started finding the stories boring, or not funny. When Cleary was in third grade she sat down and started reading “The Dutch twins” by Lucy Fitch Perkins and that was the book that made her love reading. By sixth grade one of her teachers suggested that she should become a children’s writer, due to the essays that she had submitted. In 1934, Cleary graduated from Portland’s Grant High School. Soon after she went to Chaffey Junior College in California. After two years at Chaffey she was accepted into the University of California, Berkeley. in 1938 she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. In 1939 she graduated from the School of Librarianship at the University of Washington.

From 1939-1940 she worked as a librarian. From 1942-1945 she worked as a post-librarian in a U.S. Army Hospital. Cleary wanted to help kids find books that they could relate too and she struggled with this. She wanted to make books that kids could relate to. Her first book was published in 1950, and was titled, “Henry Huggins”. Cleary won many awards throughout her lifetime. Some of these include; 220-student residential hall named after her, at the University of California Berkeley, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award from the American Library Association, and the list continues! On March 25th, 2021, just 18 days before her 105th birthday, Cleary passed away.