The Beverly Cleary Handbook

by Joanne Kelly

One of America's best-loved children's authors takes center stage in this fascinating resource book. Summaries of all Cleary's novels (including the popular Henry and Ramona books) are accompanied by a description of the author's real-life experiences as reflected in her books and a variety of extension activities (e.g., writing, word games, map activities, dramatic plays, puzzles). An extensive bibliography lists Cleary's own fiction and nonfiction publications, her childhood favorites, and books and journal articles about her. Photographs, maps, and drawings illustrate the settings of her books and of her own life. You will appreciate the numerous tips and project ideas.

163 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes indeed, Joanne Kelly’s 1996 The Beverly Cleary Handbook totally and completely ranks for me with five most appreciated and well deserved stars (although just to be perfectly clear, I would not really consider The Beverly Cleary Handbook as something for children to be independently reading or having Joanne Kelly’s text read to them, but rather that The Beverly Cleary Handbook is generally meant to be approached and used as an informative educational resource tool and reference guide for teachers and parents).

Providing an extensive (but also not ever overly intensive) introduction to all things Beverly Cleary, in my opinion, if you are a teacher or a parent wanting to or even in the future intending to introduce Beverly Cleary and her novels to your students, to your children, well, The Beverly Cleary Handbook is in my humble opinion a tome that is definitely not to be missed, is a book which I absolutely and with no major reservations whatsoever do very highly and much warmly recommend. For not only do Joanne Kelly’s printed words feature such (to be expected) standards like biographical background information on Beverly Cleary, detailed synopses of ALL of Beverly Cleary’s writing and a truly wonderful and delightfully detailed bibliography of both primary and secondary works (with of course the necessary caveat that any post 1996 titles will of course not be present), the many and meticulously described Beverly Cleary and her work based activities (both adult/teacher guided and independent suggestions) are absolutely the icing on an already delicious cake for me and totally render The Beverly Cleary Handbook into a perfect reference and teaching tool (and with my only minor caveat being that included the book synopses are detailed and thus will of course also contain spoilers).

Now I have in my first paragraph pointed out that the The Beverly Cleary Handbook is generally meant for teachers and parents reading about Beverly Cleary (and thus not really something that young readers would likely enjoy reading on their own). However, there is of course also nothing contained within the pages of The Beverly Cleary Handbook that should in any manner be inappropriate for children, but I do think that most younger readers would likely consider what I have oh so much appreciated and loved in The Beverly Cleary Handbook as being rather monotonous (but for educators and caregivers, in my humble opinion, The Beverly Cleary Handbook truly is a glowing textual gem).

[Cheryl]

Neat idea. I wonder if there are similar projects for other popular authors or series.

I like the game/bulletin board project "Who might say it?" A winner would be the one who both read the most books and remembered them best. A sample question that I'd submit would be "I know I mustn't pull those curls, but oh, boing-boing!" (The game could be adapted to play with family on a road trip about famous ppl & characters, or end-of-year class party about classmates, too. I wonder if I could talk my family into playing....)

I like the exercise for Runaway Ralph, the story in which the young mouse explores independence. It has a list of characters to match up with a list of situations in which Ralph got stuck. Many times, a situation was one he could not get out of himself, and so needed help from another character. Everyone needs a helping hand sometimes.

Many of the activities and projects assume that children have read, and kept straight, many of the books. But maybe they could be done in teams. Some of the best projects are focused on just one title or short series, though. So I do recommend educators look over the book even if they're only reading a couple of titles with their students.

OpenLibrary's copy is legible, but faint. I'm only skimming, so I'm not rating it.
July 2021