The first Beverly Cleary book I read was “Ribsy”. This was because in 4th grade, I was only interested in stories that featured animals in it, books like Charlotte’s Web and Trumpet Of The Swan or funny ones like Olga Da Polga. This book was displayed at the “featured titles” table, and upon seeing a dog on the cover, I snatched it up!
I was introduced to Ribsy, his owner Henry Huggins and the whole Huggins family for the first time. Ribsy had gotten lost, and this story told of the adventures he experienced as he tried to make his way back to his home. Generally speaking, Henry has only a supporting role in it, but I could feel how much he loved Ribsy, and I immediately wanted to read more about them.
The next time I was at the library, I checked out more of Beverly Cleary’s titles and was pleased to see another one called “Henry and Ribsy”!
The story is about Henry’s dream of going salmon fishing with his father.
Henry’s father tells him he can come along if he can keep Ribsy out of trouble! Henry thinks this is a good deal, but things don’t work out as planned, and Henry finds keeping Ribsy out of trouble turns out to be an enormous task!
The latter half of the book is about the fishing trip that they just barely are allowed to attend. Henry has high hopes of catching himself a salmon like older boy Scooter McCarthy always boasts about, but it is dashed when Ribsy disrupts the boat, and the boy and his dog are deposited back on the shore. Henry decides to make the most of it, and enjoys himself playing with Ribsy at the beach.
At some point he hears Ribsy barking at something, and Henry discovers it is a huge Chinook Salmon, struggling in the shallows of the river leading to the ocean. With Ribsy frantically barking, Henry wades in and attempts to catch the fish with his bare hands!
This book just totally captivated me. I’d never read a book that was so exciting to read.
The scene with Henry struggling with the Salmon just blew me away! I remember reading and re-reading that chapter over and over! This was it for me, and I knew I had to read EVERY Beverly Cleary book featuring Henry and Ribsy!
Next came the book that I guess I should have STARTED with, the first book in the series, simple entitled “Henry Huggins”. It was really cool to read this, though, because I knew Henry and Ribsy so well by now, and it was neat to actually read in “real time” about Henry just finding Ribsy as a stray for the first time! By the time I finished reading this one, I loved every one in the neighborhood, including Beezus and of course Ramona!
This led to me reading ALL of the Cleary books about Henry Huggins, including Henry and The Clubhouse, Henry and Beezus, Henry and The Paper Route, and even Ramona The Pest and Beezus and Ramona, which Henry makes brief appearances.
From then on I progressed to all of Beverly Cleary’s other wonderful series like The Mouse and The Motorcycle…but that’s for another post!
