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Beverly Cleary may be best known for her books for younger children such as the Ramona books, Henry Huggins, Ralph S. Mouse and other children's classics, but her teen romance novels are truly classics of the genre.
Fifteen (1956)
Jane Purdy is fifteen and a sophomore in high school. No one has ever asked her for a date except George, an unromantic boy who is an inch shorter than she is and talks of nothing but his rock collection. Then she meets Stan: tall, good-looking, resourceful, and sixteen years old--all she ever dreamed of. The circumstances are trying. Jane is baby-sitting with Sandra Norton, the toughest assignment in town. Stan appears just in time to prevent Sandra, by a skillful use of pig Latin, from emptying a bottle of ink on the Nortons' blond living-room carpet. But I'll never see him again, Jane tells herself despairingly the next day. I'm just not the type to interest an older man. And then one evening the telephone rings . . .
No reader can fail to share Jane's breathless excitement or the shattering ups and downs of her friendship with Stan. Because Jane's problems are their own, girls approaching fifteen will take her to their hearts. So will everyone who has ever been fifteen.
How Jane emerges from the agonizing awkwardness of adolescence is the theme of a book whose humor matches that of Mrs. Cleary's earlier stories and whose warm understanding carries it to a new height. It is hard to think of any other American writer who has so successfully put on paper the sorrows and joys and absurdities of girlhood. (inside flap)
The Luckiest Girl (1958)
Shelley looked out into the soft night and smiled. I am the luckiest girl in San Sebastian, she thought, because I am sixteen and Philip likes me.
At home in Oregon, Shelley had not been in this blissful state. She had grown tired of going steady with her friend Jack, and tired of having everything decided for her: especially that she must wear the pink raincoat with the black velveteen collar that her mother had bought for her, instead of the yellow slicker she wanted. So when she was invited to spend the coming school year in southern California, Shelley's parents decided the change would be good for her. And now, just as she had been sure she would, she had found the boy she had always wanted to meet.
Their romance, however, is only one part of this funny and tender and wonderful book. What follows it is even more enchantingly gilded with a lovely light--the very shine of youth. (inside flap)
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Jean & Johnny (1959)
Until Johnny asked her to dance, Jean had not thought much about real boys at all. Boys were people who lived in the same neighborhood and went to the same school. Some of them were agreeable to talk to once in a while, and some were noisy nuisances. Certainly she had not thought of any of them as dancing partners . . . It had been so much easier to dream about a boy on the television screen. With that boy she would be dancing lightly, gracefully. But with this boy, this real, live boy . . . well, it was all so different from her dreams. (inside flap)
Sister of the Bride (1963)
"Don't tell!" said Rosemary. "I'll come home and tell them myself. But I'm sure Dad will be furious anyway." Barbara hung up the phone in a daze. How could Rosemary possibly get married? She was only nineteen--why, she still had braces on her teeth! And Greg was still in school--he couldn't support a wife. Dad certainly would be furious. "In fact," Barbara told herself, "we can get ready for a first-class fight!" (back cover)
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Fair Exchange (1957)
The Golden Dream (1959)
Inside the house Starli's mother was still waiting up. "Oh, Mother," she cried, "Avery brought me home, and then daddy . . ."
"Hush, dear, I heard it all." Mrs. Ryland was very gentle.
"It's the first time a boy has ever liked me. And he said such wonderful things. Then Daddy began to--but maybe it's all just a dream."
"But it isn't, Starli, so you might as well make the best of things. They're going to get better. They have to, because I'm afraid they can't get much worse."
Green Eyes (1955)
"I was just thinking about the play," Danny said, his usually candid eyes not meeting hers. "It's going to be out of this world."
"And that's exactly what we'll say in our editorial," Jan agreed.
"I was being personal, not editorial," Danny explained painfully. He went on slowly. "I was thinking of how much I'd like to ask you for a date to go to the play if I weren't afraid you'd snap back that you had to work or you wish I'd drop dead or something."
On another day, she might have snapped at him and refused his offer because she was embarrassed. Today it seemed perfectly natural to lean over the banister, smile, and say, "I'd love to go to the play with you, Danny." (back cover)
Candy Stripers
Golden Slippers
Bonnie
Dinny Gordon, Freshman
Dinny Gordon, Sophomore
Senior Year
High Note, Low Note
Meet the Malones
Beany Malone
Leave It To Beany
Beany & the Reckoning Road
My True Love Waits
Beany Has a Secret Life
Make a Wish For Me
Happy Birthday Dear Beany
The More the Merrier
A Bright Star Falls
Welcome Stranger
Pick a New Dream
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Updated 11/21/06
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