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->''"Children should learn that reading is pleasure, not just something that teachers make you do in school."''

Beverly Atlee Cleary (April 12, 1916 – March 25, 2021) was an American children's author.

Her largest and best-known collection of books (too loose-knit to be really a "series", although there is a chronological order) involves a group of children in Portland, Oregon (where Cleary herself grew up), including Literature/HenryHuggins and his dog Ribsy, Henry's friend Beatrice "Beezus" Quimby and her little sister Ramona, and Ramona's friend Howie Kemp. [[Literature/RamonaQuimby Ramona]] is the break-out star character of the series. They were adapted into a TV series in the [=1980s=] (called ''Ramona''), and a movie (called ''Ramona and Beezus'') was released in 2010.

Another well-known series by Beverly Cleary begins with ''[[Literature/RalphSMouse The Mouse and the Motorcycle]]'', about a mouse who befriends a lonely boy and discovers a useful but never-quite-explained ability to [[SurprisinglyFunctionalToys drive toy vehicles as if they were real]].

Part of what makes the books work so well is the portrayal of various events that are a huge deal to a child. Cleary's insight into the minds of children also creates a large cast of very realistic characters easy for both children and adults to relate to.

Her birthday, April 12th, is designated as "Drop Everything and Read Day" ([[FunWithAcronyms DEAR]], as introduced in ''Ramona Quimby, Age 8'') in American elementary schools, in which lessons stop and the students simply read whatever they want silently.

Cleary lived to be 104 years old. When asked, on her 100th birthday, if she had any tips for such longevity, she simply said, "I didn't do it on purpose."

!!Works by Beverly Cleary with their own trope pages include:

* ''Literature/HenryHuggins'' series
* ''Literature/RamonaQuimby'' series
* ''Literature/EllenAndOtis'' series
* ''Literature/RalphSMouse'' series
* ''Literature/DearMrHenshaw'' (her only book to win the MediaNotes/NewberyMedal) and ''Strider''
* ''Literature/EmilysRunawayImagination''
* ''Literature/MitchAndAmy''
* ''{{Literature/Socks}}''
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!!Beverly Cleary's other works provide examples of:

* {{Novelization}}: Cleary wrote three soft-cover novels based on ''Series/LeaveItToBeaver'' in the early '60s.
* RadishCure: Cleary included a story in her autobiography of some boys who chewed garlic in class. The principal finally bought a dollar's worth of garlic[[note]]this was in the 1930s, so a dollar bought a ''lot'' of garlic[[/note]] and had them chew it all. Although Otis chews garlic himself in his self-titled book (as a way to get rid of the taste in his mouth after the "spitball incident"), he does not get punished for it. He does, however, get a Radish Cure for making spitballs.
* SeriousBusiness: The main characters tend to take a lot of things very seriously, even though their problems would seem very minor from an adult's point of view. Justified since the books are told from a child's perspective, in which things like paper routes and school art projects really ''are'' serious business.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: While her books portray the ups and downs of life, her books usually have a much lighter spirit, making it more on the idealistic end of the scale.
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