Manybooks's Reviews > Ramona the Brave

Well to tell the truth, the episodic nature of Beverly Cleary’s third Ramona Quimby novel, with her 1975 Ramona the Brave (and much more so than with the first two series novels, than with both Beezus and Ramona and Ramona the Pest) really do tend to make the connections and transitions from chapter to chapter feel a bit choppy and sometimes even leave the presented episodes rather hanging in midair so to speak (such as for example that I textually find it kind of both frustrating and annoying how after Ramona and her friend Howie have a pretty major falling out regarding the playing of their brick factory game, that entire scenario simply ceases and Cleary’s text pretty rapidly moves on to something completely different without really any closure, without us knowing if and when Howie and Ramona will be mending their proverbial fences).

However, and the above having been said, I still have totally and utterly enjoyed my reading time with Ramona the Brave, can certainly well understand that for many of my Goodreads friends who fondly remember Beverly Cleary’s Ramona novels from their childhood, Ramona Quimby is obviously a wonderful and relatable book comrade/ally and therefore I do kind of wish that I had also encountered the Ramona series when I was a young reader (at least those Ramona Quimby novels which Beverly Cleary penned from the 1950s to the early 1980s). For yes indeed, many of the both school and home related issues and anecdotes that Ramona experiences and has to deal with throughout Ramona the Brave feel very much familiar to me and likely to many of us (from our own childhoods), and for me, in particular Ramona being afraid of the dark etc. and not wanting to, not daring to admit this to anyone, not to her family, not to her teacher, this most definitely is majorly personally relatable, as is my reading joy of encountering Ramona (and her friends) delightfully playing rough and tumbling outside in Ramona the Brave (and with Ramona’s mother like my own mother not really ever caring and worrying all that much about skinned knees and mild bruises, which sadly though, in today’s atmosphere of fear and helicopter parenting, would likely mean suspicion and/or parents often not even allowing any rough and outdoor playing time at all for their young children).

Four solid stars for Ramona the Brave, as even though the above mentioned choppiness of some if not many of Beverly Cleary’s presented episodes does frustrate me a bit, this is certainly very much mitigated by Cleary obviously both understanding and appreciating children and writing a story that reads not only engagingly and humorously but also with much authorial empathy and sympathy. And yes and finally, for today’s children and their parents reading, encountering Ramona the Brave, in my humble opinion, it really is also time to rediscover the many joys and advantages of outdoor playing (that children, like it is shown by both Ramona and her friend Howie in Ramona the Brave should be engaging in outdoor and even rough and tumble fun and games, both invented games like Ramona and Howie’s Brick Factory and traditional games like tag and the like).