Overview: Ramona The Pest is a story about a spunky character name Ramona and her adventures in kindergarten. The story take place at the beginning of kindergarten, Ramona is new to school and is thrilled about her new teacher. Through out the chapter book Ramona gains independence and learns a few lesson about rules and how school works. Although she doesnt mean to, she keeps running into trouble. In this book she is accompanied by her neighbor Howie whom she loves to hate and other familiar characters to the series like her big sister Beezus and Henry Higgins. By the end of kindergarten Ramona has definitely learned and experienced some adventures her first year of school.
Cleary, B. (1968). Ramona the pest. New York, NY: William Morrow.
Little Library Review: I really enjoy this book and the main character Ramona. I've reader every book in this series but The Pest is one of my favorites. What I like most about Ramona is how easily her character is able to relate to kids in the classroom. Although she gets into trouble frequently in most of the book she is not meaning to be mean most of the time. When reading this book aloud to children they really relate to her feelings of pleasing , feeling left out, and being unfairly treated and they feel empathy for her misunderstandings. I really admire her spirit and spunk and how unique a character she is literally marching to the beat of her own drum. She is strong willed but in a noble sense. My favorite part of this book was the scene when Ramona gets her new boots and then gets stuck in the mudd. She was so snarky and sure that she wouldn't get caught or stuck. This is a great read aloud at any time of the year but maybe most helpful at the beginning of school year, when children are finding their identity in their new classroom.
Other Professional Reviews: In Anita Silvey’s 100 Best Books for Children, she says that “Critics have described Ramona the Pest as a girl’s experiences in meeting the Establishment.” Which just makes me think that a book called Ramona Vs. The Man would have made perfect sense. Someday, sad to say, we’ll see someone take Ramona and turn her into a teenager. If they’ve any sense at all, they’ll make her one that wears combat boots.
Of course Ramona had appeared for years in Cleary’s other books. Silvey says, “Cleary thought about Ramona the Pest for fifteen years before writing the book. In a New York taxi in 1953, her editor suggested that Cleary develop a story about Ramona, a minor character in the Henry Huggins books. She dismissed this idea and continued to work on other projects. But she found that Ramona, until then making only cameo appearances, began to take on a life of her own. So in 1968, Beverly Cleary picked up a sheet of paper and began with a title, Ramona the Pest. ‘The story of Ramona’s clash with the school system, her eagerness for attention, her stubbornness, her misunderstandings, her fears, her longing to love and be loved, almost seemed to write itself’.”
Bird, E. (2012). Top 100 children's novels #24 Ramona the pest by Beverly Cleary. School Library Journal. Retrieved from http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2012/06/04/top-100-childrens-novels-24-ramona-the-pest-by-beverly-cleary/
Using it in the Library 📖: Activities or lessons that can be done with this book are a character analysis. Ramona is a big character in this story and changes over time, a class could track the events and mark the characters actions as these events unfold. Internal and external traits could be a focus while searching for the proof in the story as the events happen. As more series were read in the library we could compare and contrast time frames and characters. We could also keep a timeline.
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