Ramona

My girlfriend often references Ramona and her Father as one of her favorite childhood books. I, of course, had never read it before now. I expected to find the character of Ramona a little more rambunctious, but perhaps this particular story didn’t lend itself to the exploration of her wilder side. Something I really appreciated was the working class aesthetic the book maintains. Ramona’s father eventually finds a job (after a considerable dry spell) as a cashier in a supermarket. Cleary makes the characters very approachable by making them good working class people.
Cleary’s strong-minded and brave Ramona is an excellent role model to young girls. She’s precocious, smart, and funny. Through her relentless work and creativity, she even succeeds in convincing her father to give up a nasty smoking habit.
Even though Ramona and her Father was written in the seventies, I couldn’t really find anything that made it seem truly dated. It really is a timeless classic.