I just realized that Beverly Cleary is still alive. She's 104 years old. I didn't realize she was such a successful author. She sold over 90 million copies of her books.
I'm not sure what gave me the idea to read this book. I just remembered That I enjoyed her books as a child. Though the memory of her book was very vague since it was so long ago. I think I read her book titled Socks.
I was hoping that she wrote books for adults too. My other favorite children's authors, Lois Duncan and Madeline L'Engle I also looked up to see if they wrote for adults. Lois wrote a book that was non fiction about her daughter going missing. I'm not sure about Madeline L'Engle.
The only thing that Beverly Cleary wrote for adults was her memoir, and that actually worked out for my goals of reading autobiography type books.
Something about her book is really well written. I was super impressed with the first paragraph even. I'm not sure why it was so satisfying.
It was a real page turner too. I was wondering what would happen next, and how she would get over obstacles as she attended junior college and college.
It was interesting to see her life and perspective because she attended college during the great depression and worked during world war two. It was very interesting to see what people's lives like were back then.
The one thing that I thought was odd was that she barely described or talked about her husband. Maybe this was out of respect for his privacy. She only had a shallow portrayal of him and her relationship with him. I kind of wished to know more about how she felt and how they connected.
She didn't talk about her children hardly, but they weren't born yet by the time her book ended.
I'm very inspired by how she always worked and tried to be independent and was so sociable. I'm also inspired by how she worked for her goals and how she started writing. She overcame writers block and that feeling of wanting to do something, but not knowing exactly how.
I felt sad by the time I was done with the book because I felt nostalgic. All the characters and personalities in her memoir existed many years ago. But they were real and once existed. It made me feel so sad and melancholy when I realized they are from the past and are long gone.
