Cleary wrote about ordinary kids in ordinary neighborhoods doing ordinary things—and made it magical. Ramona Quimby wasn’t special or chosen or gifted. She was eight years old, broke her best friend’s crown, got sent to the principal’s office, and felt misunderstood by adults who didn’t remember childhood’s fierce emotions. Cleary remembered. For fifty years, she wrote kids as they actually are: messy, emotional, hilarious, real. She died at 104, having sold 91 million books about the everyday heroism of being young.
