Ramona Quimby - Character Overview

Character Overview

During her earlier appearances, Ramona was depicted as an imaginative but infuriating nursery schooler and the younger sister of Beezus Quimby who often insisted upon tagging along with her older sister and her friends, and often managed to cause them agitation or sometimes even spoil their fun with her imaginative mischief. However, Ramona saw her first major role when the author decides to focus on her viewpoint more than that of other characters in the book in Ramona the Pest. Here, Ramona is portrayed as an anxious, curious little girl about to start kindergarten who is in a hurry to mature, albeit she frequently and unintentionally manages to annoy those around her; she tugs at a classmate's curls out of curiosity and winds up being suspended from school, she disrupts naptime for her fellow pupils while striving to earn the position of "Wake-Up Fairy" for the day, and misunderstands the lyrics to the national anthem. From then onward, the series shifts to divert focus to Ramona's point of view and years of elementary school, chronicling her experiences throughout those years. Ramona tries to behave with maturity and is in a rush to grow up, albeit things frequently do not go as planned for her and end in mortification for Ramona.

Ramona maintains her active imagination throughout the entire series. She daydreams about earning riches and wealth for her family after her father loses his job in Ramona and her Father by starring in television commercials, she designed an intelligent-looking paper owl as a craft project in the first grade that was copied by a fellow student named Susan Kushner, who received credit and praise for her own owl which Ramona later damaged out of rage in Ramona the Brave, and frequently pretends to be a rabbit in Ramona and her Mother. She became an older sister at the end of Ramona Forever to a baby girl named Roberta Day Quimby, and finally received satisfaction regarding her age towards the end of the final book in the series, Ramona's World, at her tenth birthday party. It is during the celebration that she makes amends with her rival throughout the series, Susan Kushner, after learning about her constant strive for perfection.