In honor of Beverly Cleary’s 102nd birthday (born April 12, 1916), I am rerunning the post I wrote in 2016. Beverly Cleary is still on this earth, and still a beloved author, and if you have never read a book by her, I urge you to do so. You will be so glad you did!

Are you a Beverly Cleary fan? I am, and in honor of the author’s 100th birthday, I wrote a guest post on my daughter’s blog, Howling Frog Books.

Does Beverly Cleary qualify as northern California history? Of course! In the first place, anything 100 years old is history.

As for California, it’s true, she was born and raised in Oregon and her most famous stories are set on Klickitat Street in Portland. But she graduated from the University of California at Berkeley (me too!) where she met her husband (me too!)  After a stint as a children’s librarian (me too!) in Yakima, Washington (me in Bakersfield), she and her husband moved to Carmel, California, where she started writing books and kept on writing for the next 49 years (not me).

Today she lives in a retirement home in Carmel (which is northern California, if you live in San Diego) and is enjoying carrot cake for her birthday.

Her best-known character, Ramona Quimby

So read about her here, and all over the Web. And read one of her many, many books. If you don’t want to read a children’s book (and why not?) then read her wonderful memoirs: A Girl from Yamhill and My Own Two Feet. Guaranteed enjoyment.

My autographed copy of Beezus and Ramona