Ramona's World
First edition
|
|
| Author | Beverly Cleary |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Alan Tiegreen |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Ramona |
| Genre | Children's novel |
| Publisher | William Morrow |
|
Publication date
|
August 25, 1999 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 209 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 46365349 |
| Preceded by | Ramona Forever -1984 |
Ramona's World is the eighth book in the Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary. Ramona and her sister Beezus are growing up. Ramona is in the fourth grade now, and for the first time she has a best girl-friend, Daisy Kidd. At home she tries her best to be a good role model for her baby sister Roberta, but finds baby sitting harder than she expected. Published in 1999, Ramona's World was written fifteen years after its predecessor, Ramona Forever. It was the last published installment in the series, as well as the last book Ms. Cleary published.
Ramona's world is changing. There's tiny baby Roberta at home, and as Ramona adjusts to being a big sister, she discovers that she likes teaching Roberta to do things such as sticking out her tongue. In fourth grade, she finally has a best girlfriend, the new student Daisy Kidd (who is also new to the neighborhood). At school Ramona is frustrated with her teacher, Mrs. Meacham. Mrs. Meacham pushes her students to be proper spellers; spelling is a difficult subject for Ramona.
Beezus, a 14-year-old just entering high school, starts speaking French around the house, spending a lot of time on the phone talking about boys and asking her friends about who she should date, makes her little sister mad. Ramona begins to feel forgotten as Beezus, while Mr. Quimby, and Mrs. Quimby are always fussing over Roberta.
Ramona's rivalry with Susan, her nemesis since kindergarten, continues. Ramona's parents and Susan's parents have become friends, and both sets of parents have asked their daughters to get along with each other. Ramona is frustrated by Susan's perfect attitude. She reluctantly invites Susan to her "zero teenth" (or tenth) birthday party at the park at her mother's insistence. At the party, Susan eats an apple instead of the birthday cake telling everybody that it can cause cativies and might have germs since Ramona blew out the candles. This makes the girls reluctant to eat cake, which upsets Ramona. Daisy stood up for Ramona and tells them that it's rude to talk about germs at a birthday party and who cares if little germs get on the cake saying how it's not like they got the cake from the floor. The girls realize that Daisy's right and they turn against Susan. By surprise, Susan throws away her apple, bursts into tears and admits that she’s tired of having to be perfect all the time and how nobody likes her because of it. She states that Ramona is not perfect but is liked by everyone and how she has homemade Valentine's Day cards while Susan's was just store bought. For the first time, Ramona feels sorry for Susan and defends her, showing that Ramona is beginning to be able to see things from someone else's point of view (which means that she is growing more mature) and Mrs. Quimby told Susan that she doesn't have to be perfect because not everybody is perfect. This makes Susan realize that and decide to eat some of the birthday cake along with other boys from the park. In the end, Mrs. Quimby kisses Ramona's hair like she kisses Roberta's and says, "Ten is the best age of growing up".
...
Wikipedia