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From The Seattle Times: A self-guided walking tour through sites in Beverly Cleary’s books…
A pack of kids on scooters race along the tree-lined streets like it’s 1955. A boy whizzes by on a bike — wait, was that Henry Huggins? The sidewalks are sprinkled liberally with chalk art, rope swings and Little Free Libraries.
This is Beverly Cleary’s Grant Park, the real-life northeast Portland neighborhood where the beloved author grew up and which was used as the setting for her classic children’s books. Before Portland was known for hipsters and foodies (and anarchists), it was where the fun-loving, irrepressible Ramona Quimby lived.
Cleary died this past March, three weeks shy of her 105th birthday. In addition to being a celebrated children’s author, she was a Husky, class of ’39. Cleary graduated from the University of Washington’s School of Librarianship and worked as a children’s librarian in Yakima. It was in Yakima when a little boy asked her where to find books “about kids like us.”
She decided to write them herself. “Henry Huggins” was published in 1950, “Ramona’s World” in 1999, and in between, generations of readers grew up with the gang of kids on Klickitat Street.
Read full post on The Seattle Times