Critical Reception
Pat Pflieger, professor of children's literature at West Chester University commented: "Cleary's books have lasted because she understands her audience.She knows they're sometimes confused or frightened by the world around them, and that they feel deeply about things that adults can dismiss." Eliza Dresang, Beverly Cleary Professor in Children and Youth Services at the UW Information School notes: "Those books don't seem so radical now, but they were when she was writing them." She suggests that the areas they cover are portrayed with honesty and accuracy. Twentieth-Century Children's Writers says "Beverly Cleary's impact as a children's writer cannot be overestimated." It goes on to cite "her extraordinary talent in creating memorable young characters whose exuberant spirit and zest for life attract young and old readers alike."
Read more about this topic: Beverly Cleary
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or reception:
“Post-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. Which means that critical opinion is often orphaned in the present.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
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