Beezus and Ramona
Later edition Alan Tiegreen cover
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| Author | Beverly Cleary |
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| Illustrator | Louis Darling |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Ramona |
| Genre | Children's novel |
| Publisher | William Morrow |
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Publication date
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1955 |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| Pages | 183 pp |
| OCLC | 21500010 |
| Followed by | Ramona the Pest (1968) |
Beezus and Ramona is a 1955 children's novel written by Beverly Cleary. It is the first of Cleary's books to focus on Ramona Quimby and her sister Beatrice, known as Beezus. Beezus and Ramona is realistic fiction, written from nine-year-old Beezus' point of view, as she struggles to get along with her four-year-old sister. Eventually becoming the first book of the Ramona series, it was originally illustrated by Louis Darling; later editions were illustrated by Alan Tiegreen and then by Tracy Dockray.
Beatrice "Beezus" Quimby, a close friend of Henry Huggins, is perpetually infuriated by the imaginative antics of her younger sister Ramona, who frequently insists upon exhibiting imaginative habits and eccentricities such as wearing her beloved homemade paper rabbit ears while pretending to be the Easter Bunny, dragging a string along behind her pretending to lead an imaginary lizard named Ralph, and being read an irritating children's book about an anthropomorphic, disgruntled steam shovel called Scoopy. Beezus is also commonly exasperated by actions on her sister's part such as writing in a library book, inviting her classmates to a house party without the permission of her parents, and wreaking havoc during Beezus's painting class. Beezus, however, is haunted frequently by the guilt of her animosity towards Ramona and the uneasy sisterhood that they share as opposed to that displayed by her mother and Aunt Beatrice, and is finally prompted to revealing this during her tenth birthday celebration after Ramona has ruined a pair of birthday cakes intended for the party. However, after learning about memories from the childhoods of Aunt Beatrice and her mother, Beatrice accepts that she can love (but may not always like) Ramona.
Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy originally appeared in their own series of six books, starting with Henry Huggins in 1950. Beezus and Ramona were introduced in that book as friends of Henry who also lived on Klickitat Street in Portland, Oregon. They continued to appear off and on in that series until Cleary concluded it in 1964, with Ribsy.
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