My Beverly Cleary Collection!

Been organizing my shelves of Childrens' Books after digging out those Halloween classics a few weeks ago, and bringing out all my beloved Beverly Cleary books to scan, thought it might be interesting to take some pictures of them for posterity! 
   Up first are the Hardcover books, and these are the ones I treasure most because they're the ones that I grew up with, the ones that I read and re-read all through grade school and made me fall in love with all things Beverly Cleary!!  Through Rummage Sales and Ebay, I've managed to get my hands on just about every book edition I loved as a kid, though there are some (like "Socks") that I only have in later paperbacks.
  Next are the Dell Yearling Paperbacks that came out in the 80's that I remember my little sister bringing home from the library, at the time, the covers looked so strange and modern, now when I look at them I get the same feelings of nostalgia as the original Louis Darling/Alan Tiegreen/ etc covers!
  Then we've got the miscellaneous paperbacks and books (including the VERY interesting Beverly Cleary autobiographies where you found that so much stuff in her books happened to her in real life!(My Own Two Feet, for instance, is almost a dead-on same story as "The Luckiest Girl", they are THAT similar!) , and finally, some fun audio books-you haven't heard the Ramona story til you've herd it read by Stockard "Rizzo" Channing and Henry Huggins read by Neal Patrick "Doogie Howser" Harris!

 Hardcover Books:

Henry Huggins, Henry and the Clubhouse, Ribsy, Henry and the Paper Route, Henry and Beezus, Henry and Ribsy, Emily's Runaway Imagination, Mitch and Amy, Otis Spofford, The Luckiest Girl, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Runaway Ralph, Ramona Quimby, Age 8, Ramona Forever, Ramona the Brave, Ramona the Pest, Beezus and Ramona, Henry Huggins 50th Anniversary Edition

Beverly Cleary Hardcover Books

Dell Yearling Paperbacks (Joanne Scribner covers)

Henry Huggins, Henry and Ribsy, Henry and the Clubhouse, Henry and Beezus, Ribsy, Emily's Runaway Imagination, Ramona Forever, Ramona Quimby, Age 8, Ramona and Her Mother, Beezus and Ramona, Runaway Ralph, Socks

Beverly Cleary Dell Yearling Paperbacks (Joanne Scribner Covers)

Other Paperbacks and Books

The Mouse and The Motorcycle, Ramona and Her Father, Ellen Tebbits, Ralph S. Mouse, Ramona's World, Strider, Dear Mr, Henshaw, Otis Spofford, Fifteen, Henry and the Paper Route, A Girl From Yamhill, My Own Two Feet

Other Beverly Cleary Paperbacks and Books + her two autobiographies

Audio Books:

Ramona Forever, Henry Huggins

Beverly Cleary Audio Books: Ramona the Pest and Henry Huggins

I have a friend who was lucky enough to have met Ms. Cleary back in the seventies and is a proud owner of a personalized copy of "The Mouse And The Motorcycle", I sadly have never had a chance to meet her (yet!!!) but I was able to acquire copies of "Henry Huggins" and "Ramona Forever" autographed by Beverly Cleary through the internet! You can be sure that these are the crowns of my collection!

My Autographed Beverly Cleary books: Henry Huggins and Ramona Forever

Beverly Cleary's Henry Huggins

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!