One rainy afternoon in her third-grade year, Cleary opened a book called The Dutch Twins and found herself reading for fun. Most of these struggles would one day be faced by Cleary’s fictional avatar, Ramona.
When Cleary returned from a bout of smallpox, which she actually preferred to the first grade, she found herself hopelessly behind the other children and relegated to the “slow” reading circle. Worst of all, her teacher was cruel-she would whack Cleary on the knuckles with a cane for letting her mind wander. Ruth, John and Rover never did anything interesting (and what was that ‘h’ doing in ‘John’?).
The rules made no sense to her, and the required texts were tedious. Now 92, Cleary did not attend the June 12 awards ceremony, but in a video message she thanked the University for helping her to become a children’s author, and for understanding “the importance to young readers of books that they can read with pleasure.” It’s the highest honor the UW bestows upon its graduates, and she is its 68th recipient. “As a child, I disliked books in which children learned to be ‘better’ children,” Cleary says in a telephone interview from her Carmel, Calif., home.įor her lifelong devotion to children, and for the devotion she has inspired in three generations, Cleary was named the University of Washington’s 2008 Alumna Summa Laude Dignata - the alumna of the year. When Ramona Quimby names her doll Chevrolet because she thinks it’s a beautiful word, or squeezes an entire economy-size tube of toothpaste into the bathroom sink because she’s frustrated, or sweats through a school day because she’s wearing her pajamas under her clothes, the reader, young or old, can relate. But the quality that perhaps most distinguishes her is a willingness to let children be who they are. Each of her 30-plus children’s books is a master class in effective storytelling. Cleary, ’39, is known for her phenomenal memory, her flawless eye for detail and ear for dialogue, her exquisite timing and her economical prose.
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