![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Both Cleary and Haywood captured the lives and emotions of everyday middle-class children, something that for some reason I desperately felt I was not–and for equally unclear reasons desperately desired to be.Ĭarolyn Haywood’s series of books about Betsy, Eddie, and their friends and family kicked off a lifetime of reading for many children of the mid-20th century. My 8-year-old self found the depictions of middle-class childhood in these series both instructive and comforting. And when I finished reading all of the books about Betsy, her little sister Star, and, later, Eddie, I moved on to Cleary. ![]() That habit had started the day I discovered Betsy’s Little Star on the shelves of the Washington School library. I was only busy clearing out the Cleary collection because I had read my way through every one of Carolyn Haywood‘s series. My goal was to read Cleary’s entire oeuvre. It beat even faster when I carried my cache home and dove into the stories. My heart beat fast every time I returned to the library for another fix. But I loved that I could come back for more. I limited myself to 5 books per check-out. I saw my 8-year-old self scouring the shelves for every book I could find about Ramona, Ribsy, or Henry Huggins. The death of Beverly Clearly last month immediately brought me back to the Evanston Public Library cerca 1966. ![]()
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