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My Own Two Feet: A Memoir
This second installment of the Newbery Medalist's autobiography (after A Girl from Yamhill) begins during the '30s, with the young Cleary leaving her home state of Oregon to attend junior college in California. The volume ends in 1949. Follows her through college years during the Depression; jobs including that of librarian; marriage; and writing and publication of her first book, Henry Huggins.
352 pages, Paperback
First published September 27, 1995
85 people are currently reading
2438 people want to read
About the author
Beverly Cleary
262 books3,347 followersBeverly Atlee Cleary was an American writer of children's and young adult fiction. One of America's most successful authors, 91 million copies of her books have been sold worldwide since her first book was published in 1950. Some of her best known characters are Ramona Quimby and Beezus Quimby, Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy, and Ralph S. Mouse.
The majority of Cleary's books are set in the Grant Park neighborhood of northeast Portland, Oregon, where she was raised, and she has been credited as one of the first authors of children's literature to figure emotional realism in the narratives of her characters, often children in middle-class families. Her first children's book was Henry Huggins after a question from a kid when Cleary was a librarian. Cleary won the 1981 National Book Award for Ramona and Her Mother and the 1984 Newbery Medal for Dear Mr. Henshaw. For her lifetime contributions to American literature, she received the National Medal of Arts, recognition as a Library of Congress Living Legend, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the Association for Library Service to Children. The Beverly Cleary School, a public school in Portland, was named after her, and several statues of her most famous characters were erected in Grant Park in 1995. Cleary died on March 25, 2021, at the age of 104.
The majority of Cleary's books are set in the Grant Park neighborhood of northeast Portland, Oregon, where she was raised, and she has been credited as one of the first authors of children's literature to figure emotional realism in the narratives of her characters, often children in middle-class families. Her first children's book was Henry Huggins after a question from a kid when Cleary was a librarian. Cleary won the 1981 National Book Award for Ramona and Her Mother and the 1984 Newbery Medal for Dear Mr. Henshaw. For her lifetime contributions to American literature, she received the National Medal of Arts, recognition as a Library of Congress Living Legend, and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the Association for Library Service to Children. The Beverly Cleary School, a public school in Portland, was named after her, and several statues of her most famous characters were erected in Grant Park in 1995. Cleary died on March 25, 2021, at the age of 104.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 313 reviews
April 4, 2013
This book literally picks up where A Girl from Yamhill leaves off, with the author on a bus heading for junior college in California.
I enjoyed this book and found it more personal than A Girl from Yamhill, which I thought was written rather matter-of-factly.
We follow the author as she attends college, goes to librarian school, and finds employment, all the while making friends, meeting men, and learning and striving to stand "on her own two feet". Her naivete, and her retrospective self-awareness of it, is amusing.
I think this book would make a good read for a teenage girl who was a fan of Beverly Cleary's books as a child. Even if many of the references are old-fashioned, the author makes for a good role model. She shows integrity, perseverance, and diligence while also making time for an active social life.
Much of what I found interesting in this book was the author's first-hand account of life during the Depression and World War II. Her experiences as a librarian during a time in which reference questions could not be easily and conveniently Googled and carefully maintained card catalogs were the backbone of libraries was fascinating. Perhaps I am showing my ignorance or my age, but I will mention that the author used the acronyms NYA and WPA without explaining them; one quick Google search told me that NYA = National Youth Administration and WPA = Works Progress Administration.
While A Girl from Yamhill offered sporadic connections to Beverly Cleary's books in the early chapters, it is only in the very last part of the final chapter of My Own Two Feet that we are given a satisfying glimpse into the author's writing of her first book, Henry Huggins.
As a fan of Beverly Cleary's works, I wish the book had provided even more background on her life as an author, like where she found her inspiration for other characters besides Henry Huggins, and what anecdotes in her books came from incidents in real life. By the time she wrote this memoir, she had already won awards (she makes a very brief mention of one in particular), and I would have loved to read about how she felt when she received her first award, and what it was like for her to meet and/or receive letters from fans. Her strained relationship with her mother was a theme in both her autobiographies, and I found myself wondering how that relationship might have affected the way she mothered her own children. This book, however, only briefly mentions that she had twins later in life, and the narrative stops right after Henry Huggins was published, before she becomes a mother. As a mother myself, I further wondered how being a mother might have affected her writing, or how her experience as a children's librarian and author might have affected her parenting.
I enjoyed this book and found it more personal than A Girl from Yamhill, which I thought was written rather matter-of-factly.
We follow the author as she attends college, goes to librarian school, and finds employment, all the while making friends, meeting men, and learning and striving to stand "on her own two feet". Her naivete, and her retrospective self-awareness of it, is amusing.
I think this book would make a good read for a teenage girl who was a fan of Beverly Cleary's books as a child. Even if many of the references are old-fashioned, the author makes for a good role model. She shows integrity, perseverance, and diligence while also making time for an active social life.
Much of what I found interesting in this book was the author's first-hand account of life during the Depression and World War II. Her experiences as a librarian during a time in which reference questions could not be easily and conveniently Googled and carefully maintained card catalogs were the backbone of libraries was fascinating. Perhaps I am showing my ignorance or my age, but I will mention that the author used the acronyms NYA and WPA without explaining them; one quick Google search told me that NYA = National Youth Administration and WPA = Works Progress Administration.
While A Girl from Yamhill offered sporadic connections to Beverly Cleary's books in the early chapters, it is only in the very last part of the final chapter of My Own Two Feet that we are given a satisfying glimpse into the author's writing of her first book, Henry Huggins.
As a fan of Beverly Cleary's works, I wish the book had provided even more background on her life as an author, like where she found her inspiration for other characters besides Henry Huggins, and what anecdotes in her books came from incidents in real life. By the time she wrote this memoir, she had already won awards (she makes a very brief mention of one in particular), and I would have loved to read about how she felt when she received her first award, and what it was like for her to meet and/or receive letters from fans. Her strained relationship with her mother was a theme in both her autobiographies, and I found myself wondering how that relationship might have affected the way she mothered her own children. This book, however, only briefly mentions that she had twins later in life, and the narrative stops right after Henry Huggins was published, before she becomes a mother. As a mother myself, I further wondered how being a mother might have affected her writing, or how her experience as a children's librarian and author might have affected her parenting.
November 7, 2022
A charming memoir of Cleary’s hardscrabble young-adult years and how she started telling her stories of Henry Huggins and Ramona.
April 29, 2023
What a wonderful and interesting tale of one of my favourite childhood authors! The experiences she must have remembered alone are amazing, it gave a real life glimpse into that pre and during WW2 era on the home front. I would have liked to be able to have met her. A great read :)
July 24, 2025
This was a continuation of A Girl From Yamhill, where we left Beverly on the bus headed for California and college. This picks up there, takes her to college at Berkeley, her efforts to get an education in the middle of the depression, her courtship with her husband, and her various jobs as a librarian during WWII. We learn about all the things that came together in order to publish her first book for children, Henry Huggins. The rest, as they say, is history. In both these volumes she comes across as a warm, genuine, modest and funny person. For anyone who loved her books as a child and beyond.
January 13, 2022
Just when I thought I couldn't love her more! She was just such a delightful person! The way she describes even the most mundane things, like the dresses she had for college or her classes, with such humor is just so perfect. You can see where her influences came from, in fact she talks about them, about a professor saying that good writing was in the minutiae of life, her mother (with whom she had a very strained relationship, whew boy!) saying that people will read anything that's funny, and the children at her first library job asking for stories about ordinary kids. And here it all is, it seems, the culmination of her earlier memoir and this one, leading up to the publication of Henry Huggins, showing how her life had been preparing her to write that book, and the ones that followed.
Anyone who has loved her books, and anyone who wants to be a writer, should read this and A Girl From Yamhill.
Anyone who has loved her books, and anyone who wants to be a writer, should read this and A Girl From Yamhill.
September 18, 2020
For some reason, I never read much Beverly Cleary as a child (none of the Ramona books, for example), but that didn't stop me from picking up her memoirs, which are compulsively readable, especially this one which covers her college years and early young adult working and married life. It closes with the publication of her first book, Henry Huggins, which I'm considering reading on the principle of better late than never.
April 21, 2018
Absorbing autobiography by Beverly Cleary, the author of Henry Huggins, Beezus and Ramona, and dozens of other delightful children's books that I read and my son read with delight.
The memoir covers her college years at the University of California at Berkeley during the Great Depression and her marriage and work during World War II and ends with the publication of her first book.
The title is apt. The author was adamant about standing on her own two feet - spurred on by her doubting and critical mother and the fact that everyone she knew was short of cash. I very much admired her can -do attitude and her perseverance in the face of mediocre grades and limited job prospects. She was determined to be a children's librarian because children could come and go freely in a library, but not in a classroom. Of all of her characters, Ramona seems to be the most autobiographical.
Besides her very interesting life story, her descriptions of 1930's California are fascinating. I wish she had written more about her writing process and her feedback from her fans, etc. . . But that wasn't the scope of this book.
As I write this review, Beverly Cleary is over a hundred years old and living in a retirement home. She is someone who worked hard her whole life. I'm glad she had such a long career and a good husband (he was so kind and steadfast - esp. since her parents objected to him) and children of her own.
This is a life well-lived and a story worth reading.
The memoir covers her college years at the University of California at Berkeley during the Great Depression and her marriage and work during World War II and ends with the publication of her first book.
The title is apt. The author was adamant about standing on her own two feet - spurred on by her doubting and critical mother and the fact that everyone she knew was short of cash. I very much admired her can -do attitude and her perseverance in the face of mediocre grades and limited job prospects. She was determined to be a children's librarian because children could come and go freely in a library, but not in a classroom. Of all of her characters, Ramona seems to be the most autobiographical.
Besides her very interesting life story, her descriptions of 1930's California are fascinating. I wish she had written more about her writing process and her feedback from her fans, etc. . . But that wasn't the scope of this book.
As I write this review, Beverly Cleary is over a hundred years old and living in a retirement home. She is someone who worked hard her whole life. I'm glad she had such a long career and a good husband (he was so kind and steadfast - esp. since her parents objected to him) and children of her own.
This is a life well-lived and a story worth reading.
October 22, 2014
I love every bit of this. The college parts, especially the Stebbins Hall details, are so wonderful that I once took a pilgrimage to Cal/UC Berkeley and could barely contain myself when a friendly undergrad asked me if I wanted a tour of Stebbins.
And it gets even better once Beverly becomes...a librarian! I first read this shortly after being accepted to library school and, many years and several re-reads later, find that Beverly's pride in her profession shines through. Her line about librarians being haunted by unanswered reference questions? Yup. And although she's modest about it, the fact that Beverly remembers the details of her reference desk successes shows what a pro she was.
Her Army hospital library gig continues to fascinate me. Even reading about all the military bureaucracy doesn't stop me from thinking that the job sounds like SO MUCH FUN.
It's troubling to see how Beverly's mother tries vainly to keep Beverly in her clutches, and it's even harder to read about her father's reaction to her marriage. Still, I don't know who could have written about those experiences with such a blend of honesty, tact, and consideration.
That final chapter with the beginning of her writing career is just like her novels, with all that's come before leading to a quiet crescendo.
I need a Goodreads shelf for favorite literary meals. Here it's her Depression-era grad school "meager" lunch from the UW Domestic Science Department, "...where I drank a carton of milk and ate a sandwich cut into three parts, each with a different filling. I came to like the peanut butter and banana on raisin bread section and saved it for dessert."
Last read: May, 2003
And it gets even better once Beverly becomes...a librarian! I first read this shortly after being accepted to library school and, many years and several re-reads later, find that Beverly's pride in her profession shines through. Her line about librarians being haunted by unanswered reference questions? Yup. And although she's modest about it, the fact that Beverly remembers the details of her reference desk successes shows what a pro she was.
Her Army hospital library gig continues to fascinate me. Even reading about all the military bureaucracy doesn't stop me from thinking that the job sounds like SO MUCH FUN.
It's troubling to see how Beverly's mother tries vainly to keep Beverly in her clutches, and it's even harder to read about her father's reaction to her marriage. Still, I don't know who could have written about those experiences with such a blend of honesty, tact, and consideration.
That final chapter with the beginning of her writing career is just like her novels, with all that's come before leading to a quiet crescendo.
I need a Goodreads shelf for favorite literary meals. Here it's her Depression-era grad school "meager" lunch from the UW Domestic Science Department, "...where I drank a carton of milk and ate a sandwich cut into three parts, each with a different filling. I came to like the peanut butter and banana on raisin bread section and saved it for dessert."
Last read: May, 2003
July 9, 2017
A very satisfying read. It's the second volume of children's author Beverly Cleary's memoir, beginning with her embarking on a Greyhound bus during the Depression, off to stay with a relative in California and attend junior college. By the end, her first book, Henry Huggins, has at last been accepted for publication (featuring something of a cameo by Ramona, who will go on to be her most famous creation). I had really enjoyed Cleary's earlier memoir of her childhood and earlier teen years, A Girl from Yamhill several years ago, and this was similarly delightful. A good-natured and clear-eyed window into life for a young woman in the 1930s and 1940s, from eking her way through school on Spam sandwiches to being slapped on the bottom by a military C.O. while interviewing for a job as a librarian.
October 3, 2024
I picked this up for free at a local book bank with the thought that an autobiography by Beverly Cleary sounded like a fun read— and it was! She had a great sense of humor. I laughed out loud in places, and I appreciated how light it was even though she lived through the Great Depression and WWII. She had quite a life! I didn’t realize this was the second of two memoirs, so I may have to go back and read “A Girl from Yamhill” too!
December 15, 2009
Since many of my elementary school years were spent sprawled out next to public library windows reading and rereading each and every Ramona book, I was intensely thrilled to discover this book on Amazon a year and a half ago and bought it immediately. "My Own Two Feet" details Beverly Cleary's life while attending college, escaping her family's negativity about her choices in life, deciding upon a career and attending library school, meeting and marrying her husband, and embarking upon a career as an author to satisfy the children in her library who wanted to read about kids like them.
I discovered with delight that her writing style in this book mirrors that of her fiction: straightforward, simple, and to-the-point. She relays the events of her life by stating her goals, stating her family's oppositions to each goal, and detailing how she forged ahead anyway. I admired her tremendously after finishing this book: despite the fact that she reached adulthood during a time when women were expected to accept their families' plans for them with mute, easy nods, she managed to fly under the radar, work hard to maintain her financial independence, and decide her own fate: an accomplishment worthy of Ramona herself.
I discovered with delight that her writing style in this book mirrors that of her fiction: straightforward, simple, and to-the-point. She relays the events of her life by stating her goals, stating her family's oppositions to each goal, and detailing how she forged ahead anyway. I admired her tremendously after finishing this book: despite the fact that she reached adulthood during a time when women were expected to accept their families' plans for them with mute, easy nods, she managed to fly under the radar, work hard to maintain her financial independence, and decide her own fate: an accomplishment worthy of Ramona herself.
December 12, 2019
Here we see Beverly working her way through college, library school, and through several years of employment as both children's librarian, and as a civilian employee, working in a military hospital library, during the second world war. She narrates her travels and struggles up and down the states of Washington, Oregon, and California, looking for work, finding work, living in apartments and boarding houses, and getting married. She describes her friends, acquaintances, and some people she wishes she hadn't met. She covers the beginning and end of the war, and a few years following, alone at home, writing and publishing her first book, about Henry Huggins and his neighbors. Beverly admits that she surprised herself to discover the characters of Beezus and Ramona, at first only to show the population of Henry's neighbors, but later to find the characters becoming more human and immensely popular in later years.
Based on her own childhood, and through her experience working, she discovered and remembered what children actually wanted to read! And through some kind of magic, grownups want to read her books as well! She found some universal experiences and luckily published many good books!
Based on her own childhood, and through her experience working, she discovered and remembered what children actually wanted to read! And through some kind of magic, grownups want to read her books as well! She found some universal experiences and luckily published many good books!
June 28, 2020
This one was more lively in many ways than the first, with more examples of Beverly Cleary’s sense of humor, particularly in her war job in World War II. She was clearly a peacemaker, although she noted a friend’s comment, that she was afraid of her mother. When her parents rejected her for marrying a Catholic, she went right on writing to them once a week. She blossomed once she stopped living under her parents’ humorless thumb (Although at the same time she remembered her mother’s advise to write funny stories!) She recounted her experience working in the Yakima library and remembered all the boys there who wanted a story about “someone like us” when she started writing Henry Huggins. She used many incidents from her life or stories she remembered from playmates to fill out the stories. Her writing routine was built around her bread baking and worked quite nicely for breaks! She realized all of her children were only kids so invented Ramona to explain Beezus’s nickname, never anticipating that Ramona (she overheard a neighbor mention the name in conversation with another person when she was wondering what to call Ramona) would blossom to become a series in her own right. Her final interaction mentioned with her Mother was her Mom’s comment that having children is a fad! She saw the humor there even if her mom apparently didn’t! Of course I enjoyed her comments about the librarian job the most, nodding my head in agreement with several of her comments and experiences. Recommended for those who enjoyed her first autobiography or are dying to discover the origins of Henry Huggins and his street full of friends.
August 18, 2021
Adding this non-fiction title to the long list of fiction books I love by Beverly Cleary. Loved learning about her life after high school up until she published her first book, Henry Huggins.
April 21, 2020
My Own Two Feet is the second volume of beloved author Beverly Cleary's memoirs about her early life. This book begins when young Beverly Bunn leaves home for college, follows her through her college and library school days during the Great Depression, and concludes around the time of her elopement with her husband, Clarence Cleary. I'm posting this review today in honor of Beverly Cleary's 104th birthday coming up on Sunday. (Yes, she is still alive!)
As was the case with the first volume, A Girl from Yamhill, I don't really recommend this second memoir to the same audience that reads Cleary's fiction books. Though her novels for children have a sweetness and humor to them, the difficulties she faces in real life, particularly with her distant mother, are a bit more difficult to digest and require a more sophisticated reader. Still, for teens who are looking ahead to venturing out on their own, and who have read Cleary as children, this book is a valuable look at the challenges and excitement of being a young woman on the verge of adulthood. Some of what happens to Cleary is fascinating because it is so different from what young college students experience today, and some of it is surprisingly relatable because other aspects of young adulthood really don't change from one generation to the next.
For me personally, the best parts of this book were Cleary's reflections on her time in library school. Though my library school experience relied very heavily on technology that did not yet exist in Cleary's time, many of her professional concerns were the same as mine. I also loved reading about the silly criticisms she received when she first started working in libraries: that she looked bored, didn't seem interested enough in children's librarianship, and leaned on things too much. It's funny to think about the things that mattered to employers then versus what they look for in librarians today.
My only disappointment with this book is that it doesn't get into Cleary's writing career or her life as a mother of twins. I would have loved to keep reading about how her career and life evolved over the following decades, but I also understand that, as a writer for children, she might have wanted to keep the focus on her younger years. Either way, I enjoyed both of these memoirs, and I'm glad there are at least a couple of Beverly Cleary books for my girls to read when they are teens.
This review also appears on my blog, Read-at-Home Mom.
As was the case with the first volume, A Girl from Yamhill, I don't really recommend this second memoir to the same audience that reads Cleary's fiction books. Though her novels for children have a sweetness and humor to them, the difficulties she faces in real life, particularly with her distant mother, are a bit more difficult to digest and require a more sophisticated reader. Still, for teens who are looking ahead to venturing out on their own, and who have read Cleary as children, this book is a valuable look at the challenges and excitement of being a young woman on the verge of adulthood. Some of what happens to Cleary is fascinating because it is so different from what young college students experience today, and some of it is surprisingly relatable because other aspects of young adulthood really don't change from one generation to the next.
For me personally, the best parts of this book were Cleary's reflections on her time in library school. Though my library school experience relied very heavily on technology that did not yet exist in Cleary's time, many of her professional concerns were the same as mine. I also loved reading about the silly criticisms she received when she first started working in libraries: that she looked bored, didn't seem interested enough in children's librarianship, and leaned on things too much. It's funny to think about the things that mattered to employers then versus what they look for in librarians today.
My only disappointment with this book is that it doesn't get into Cleary's writing career or her life as a mother of twins. I would have loved to keep reading about how her career and life evolved over the following decades, but I also understand that, as a writer for children, she might have wanted to keep the focus on her younger years. Either way, I enjoyed both of these memoirs, and I'm glad there are at least a couple of Beverly Cleary books for my girls to read when they are teens.
This review also appears on my blog, Read-at-Home Mom.
January 11, 2008
I am a big fan of children’s literature and have always love Beverly Cleary’s books from the time I was a young child, so it was fun to read about her life and how it came about that she wrote children’s books and where she found many of her ideas for her stories. An added dimension was the fact that she was working to educate herself during the depression and with the added burden of a mother who wasn’t exactly supportive of her efforts in education or her social life.
Funny enough I was reading this at the same time as reading Roald Dahl’s autobiography (actually both of them wrote 2 autobiographies each, one of their childhoods and one of their young adulthoods), another children’s literature author and who lived during the same time as Beverly Cleary. It was interesting to read how each of them experienced the same time frame but from two different parts of the world. Both authors and all 4 books were wonderfully written and very engaging. I highly recommend them all!
Funny enough I was reading this at the same time as reading Roald Dahl’s autobiography (actually both of them wrote 2 autobiographies each, one of their childhoods and one of their young adulthoods), another children’s literature author and who lived during the same time as Beverly Cleary. It was interesting to read how each of them experienced the same time frame but from two different parts of the world. Both authors and all 4 books were wonderfully written and very engaging. I highly recommend them all!
May 12, 2008
For those who remember reading Beverly Cleary's books, this second memoir of Cleary's is fairly absorbing. As a high school graduate, Cleary escaped her extremely over protective, fairly neurotic mother and the gray skies of Portland, Oregon to attend college in sunny California. She relates her experiences going to school in the depression era 30's, her classes, friends, and meeting her future husband, Clarence Cleary. After graduation her desire to become a childrens' librarian takes her to Yakima for a year before she joins Clarence and takes up married life in the San Francisco area. She chronicles the challenges she faced in working during the war years and trying to find the time to fulfill her ambition to write, until she untimately writes and publishes her first book - Henry Huggins.
October 18, 2021
In which Beverly Cleary gets away from her weird mom, falls in lurrrve, gets a cat, and becomes a librarian.
In some ways, being a librarian has gotten better since Cleary was working in the 1930s and 40s- "In 1935, in the Ontario library, any librarian who was ill had to pay a substitute out of her own pocket" (94). Yikes. Unfortunately a lot of things have not changed: taxpayers not understanding how libraries work, administration making decisions that make the job harder, people thinking that volunteers can capably do the job we went to a ton of school for, weirdos grabbing your butt at work...
In some ways, being a librarian has gotten better since Cleary was working in the 1930s and 40s- "In 1935, in the Ontario library, any librarian who was ill had to pay a substitute out of her own pocket" (94). Yikes. Unfortunately a lot of things have not changed: taxpayers not understanding how libraries work, administration making decisions that make the job harder, people thinking that volunteers can capably do the job we went to a ton of school for, weirdos grabbing your butt at work...
April 1, 2024
I love a witty, well-written memoir about someone’s ordinary life. I’m especially fond of Beverly Cleary’s memoirs because I enjoy her children’s novels so much and because she was apart of my grandparents’ generation.
April 22, 2021
I remember being very impressed with *A Girl from Yamhill* -- celebrated children's author Beverly Cleary's memoir about her early years in Oregon. *My Own Two Feet* -- the part of her story that deals with the difficulties of getting educated during the Great Depression -- was intriguing in a different way.
The book was written when Cleary (who died in 2021 at 104) was nearly 80, and although it doesn't shy away from the drama of family and money problems, it feels more workmanlike than the earlier book. For example, Cleary is careful to name all her professors at junior college and the University of California and to explain what she got from each.
What affected me most was her visceral re-creation of the discipline and pragmatism it took to reach for a goal during the Depression. Cleary knew she wanted to write children's books, and despite many road blocks, she never stopped working toward that end.
She thought the best foundation would be a library science degree and experience as a children's librarian. She managed to achieve that and also to seize the opportunity to work in a children's book store for several Christmas seasons. Through that job, she made valuable contacts and met her future publisher.
I loved how Cleary rolled with unexpected situations -- and also her humorous way of describing how some things came in handy. Always hard up for money, for example, she once found herself living in a men's boarding house. Later, when the US got drawn into the Second World War and she was the librarian at an Army hospital and rec center, she realized that dealing with all her boarding-house buddies had been the perfect preparation.
Her conflicts with her mother, whose objection to Cleary's Catholic beau was only one of a long line of attempted manipulations, reveal that poverty was not the only thing that the future author had to rise above. But she is at pains to describe the sacrifices both parents made for their only child, and she reveals how skills learned from her mother (sewing, knitting elaborate suits of silk) were essential to getting her through sudden expenses, such as raises in dormitory rent.
Funny anecdotes from interactions with both children and soldiers show the much-decorated children's writer doing what she does best, collecting telling details. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments in this memoir.
The book was written when Cleary (who died in 2021 at 104) was nearly 80, and although it doesn't shy away from the drama of family and money problems, it feels more workmanlike than the earlier book. For example, Cleary is careful to name all her professors at junior college and the University of California and to explain what she got from each.
What affected me most was her visceral re-creation of the discipline and pragmatism it took to reach for a goal during the Depression. Cleary knew she wanted to write children's books, and despite many road blocks, she never stopped working toward that end.
She thought the best foundation would be a library science degree and experience as a children's librarian. She managed to achieve that and also to seize the opportunity to work in a children's book store for several Christmas seasons. Through that job, she made valuable contacts and met her future publisher.
I loved how Cleary rolled with unexpected situations -- and also her humorous way of describing how some things came in handy. Always hard up for money, for example, she once found herself living in a men's boarding house. Later, when the US got drawn into the Second World War and she was the librarian at an Army hospital and rec center, she realized that dealing with all her boarding-house buddies had been the perfect preparation.
Her conflicts with her mother, whose objection to Cleary's Catholic beau was only one of a long line of attempted manipulations, reveal that poverty was not the only thing that the future author had to rise above. But she is at pains to describe the sacrifices both parents made for their only child, and she reveals how skills learned from her mother (sewing, knitting elaborate suits of silk) were essential to getting her through sudden expenses, such as raises in dormitory rent.
Funny anecdotes from interactions with both children and soldiers show the much-decorated children's writer doing what she does best, collecting telling details. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments in this memoir.
July 13, 2022
Beverly Cleary was determined to write a book for kids that was actually about their childhood and this is the story of how she (eventually) got to do just that. She has a straightforward, funny way of relating the details about fabrics and foods and insecurities that make all of her stories engaging but not tedious. Her sentences are never fussy, and her words choices are always solid. In her fictional stories, she describes what it really feels like to be a child who is both fascinated by and unsure about the adults in her world. Her memoirs have that same sense of curiosity, observation, and honesty. I really enjoyed learning about the way she stitched together opportunity after opportunity with her own determination and good luck until she found a way to write books for children.
August 17, 2024
I just loved reading about Beverly Cleary’s life. Her books (especially the Beezus and Romana series) hold a special place in my heart. When I was younger and finished the series on audible I’d start it all over again☺️
It always made me sad to read about Beverly and her mother’s relationship, her mom was so selfish. In her young age it broke my heart when she couldn’t recall the last time her mom said “I love you”.
I was so delighted though that she married Clarance and he was such a sweet husband. And I thought it was inspiring that Beverly’s writing career didn’t start till later in her life and after she was married. It just shows it’s never too late to pick up a new hobby!
I’m so glad I read these books!
It always made me sad to read about Beverly and her mother’s relationship, her mom was so selfish. In her young age it broke my heart when she couldn’t recall the last time her mom said “I love you”.
I was so delighted though that she married Clarance and he was such a sweet husband. And I thought it was inspiring that Beverly’s writing career didn’t start till later in her life and after she was married. It just shows it’s never too late to pick up a new hobby!
I’m so glad I read these books!
April 26, 2021
Beverly Cleary writes of her struggles to get a college degree during the depression. Her mother had a very adversarial relationship with her-constantly criticizing and second guessing her decisions. Beverly stuck to her plan of becoming educated and added a degree in library science because she loved children and books. Her parents disowned her after she married her college boyfriend, a Catholic. She struggled with infertility and eventually had twins after 15 years of waiting. This probably gave her lots of writing time. Married women were discouraged from working so that men could have more jobs available.
February 11, 2021
3.5 stars is what I want to rate this book. I did enjoy this memoir, but not as much as her first one. The glimpse into what life was like for her in her young adulthood and the WW2 years was interesting but whereas I couldn’t put down her first memoir, I read this one as time allowed. Definitely worth reading though if you grew up reading Cleary.
November 30, 2021
Fantastic! It was like meeting a kindred spirit! Beverly Cleary will always be dear to my heart and her autobiography has endeared her all the more.
I also loved reading older descriptions of familiar places, like the perfect cone of Mt. St. Helens.
I also loved reading older descriptions of familiar places, like the perfect cone of Mt. St. Helens.
June 28, 2013
My Own Two Feet is Beverly Cleary's second memoir, capturing her college years through her mid-thirties, when she wrote and published her first book, Henry Huggins.
I loved reading this book, just like I loved reading Cleary's first memoir, A Girl from Yamhill, and really had trouble putting down the book. I really got the sense of Cleary's life as she learns to be a grown up. I loved hearing politely (but matter of factly) about her relationship with her parents and how their interaction with her was actually somewhat negative and how she had to learn to grow away from them in order to be her own person. I also really loved reading about her experience as a young adult during the depression, and how that affected her life and her family's life, and her concern about being happy during that time, which she was when she was away from her family at college. I found myself really impressed with her drive to be a working woman before she got married, and even after she got married. It seems as if she was fairly feminist for her day, maybe. And in general, I just found her experiences very interesting and it is clear that she grew up in a different place and time from our present day...like how she describes she was treated in job interviews, etc.
This book makes me want to go back and re-read all of my favorites by her, like Ramona and Ralph S. Mouse!
I loved reading this book, just like I loved reading Cleary's first memoir, A Girl from Yamhill, and really had trouble putting down the book. I really got the sense of Cleary's life as she learns to be a grown up. I loved hearing politely (but matter of factly) about her relationship with her parents and how their interaction with her was actually somewhat negative and how she had to learn to grow away from them in order to be her own person. I also really loved reading about her experience as a young adult during the depression, and how that affected her life and her family's life, and her concern about being happy during that time, which she was when she was away from her family at college. I found myself really impressed with her drive to be a working woman before she got married, and even after she got married. It seems as if she was fairly feminist for her day, maybe. And in general, I just found her experiences very interesting and it is clear that she grew up in a different place and time from our present day...like how she describes she was treated in job interviews, etc.
This book makes me want to go back and re-read all of my favorites by her, like Ramona and Ralph S. Mouse!
January 26, 2021
This is such an enjoyable book! Along with its companion, A Girl from Yamhill, I'd highly recommend it for fans of Beverly Cleary. This second volume picks up when Beverly leaves home for college and takes her through college, marriage, work as a librarian, WWII, and writing her first book, Henry Huggins.
December 1, 2016
I think I enjoyed this even more than Cleary's other biography. Reading about Cleary's library education and work was awesome--especially the bits about her work as a special military librarian during World War 2. A fantastic read.
May 19, 2018
A happy ending or the beginning of something I am sure a lot of us are grateful for; Beverly Cleary publishing children's books.
Really loved reading about her experiences in college, libraries, books stores and the armu at that time.
Really loved reading about her experiences in college, libraries, books stores and the armu at that time.
September 21, 2019
I enjoyed much of this book, though the details of her college studies got a little much to tread through. The focus on her days leading up to her book, while living in the Berkeley Hills were the chapters I enjoyed most.
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