By Mary Owen
Children’s author Beverly Cleary turns 100 years old on April 12, and libraries throughout Oregon are celebrating her birthday.
The Stayton Public Library will celebrate by hosting a Pet Adoption Day from noon to 5:30 p.m. in the E.G. Siegmund Room at the library.
“In her book, Henry Huggins, Henry finds a stray dog and tries to take him home on the bus,” said Casle Portner, who is helping to coordinate the event. “We liked the way he adopted a dog who needed help and decided to focus our celebration on that aspect of her books.”
The Willamette Humane Society will bring one to two dogs available for adoption and provide information on how people can adopt a pet, Portner said.
“Stayton Library approached us about the Beverly Cleary celebration, and we jumped at the opportunity to celebrate the author of the Ribsy series,” said Julianne Dunn, WHS volunteer coordinator. “We know it’s technically the Huggins series, but we love Ribsy!”
Dunn said attendees at the celebration will be able to meet and interact with the dogs as part of the celebration.
“We’ll also have games and a few activities for the kids,” Portner said. “We want kids to have fun and relate something they read in a novel to something in their lives, and also to understand that we have some great authors from Oregon.”
Born in McMinnville, Cleary is well-known for writing fiction for children and young adults, with some 91 million copies of her more than 35 books sold worldwide. Some of her best-known characters, in addition to Henry Huggins, include Ribsy, Ralph S. Mouse and Beezus Quimby and her fearless sister, Ramona.
Cleary has received numerous awards during her lifetime, including the 1981 National Book Award for Ramona and Her Mother, and two John Newbery Medal awards in 1982 and 1984. For her lifetime contributions to children’s literature, she received the National Medal of Arts, was recognized as a Living Legend by the Library of Congress, and earned the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal from the American Library Association.
In celebration of Cleary’s 100th year, HarperCollins is issuing new editions of three of her books with illustrations by Jacqueline Rogers and forewords by some of her most famous fans. The books also include a rare interview with the author herself, who has spoken to the media only once since 2011, to Oregon Public Broadcasting.
“I didn’t start out writing to give children hope, but I’m glad some of them found it,” Cleary once said.
Cleary, who now lives in Carmel, Calif., has written two autobiographies: A Girl from Yamhill and My Own Two Feet. She has always been mentioned as a major influence by other authors, including Judy Blume and Laurie Halse Anderson.
Due to Cleary’s birthday celebration, there will be no story time at the Stayton Library April 12.
“We will have plenty of information about WHS and how people can get involved here,” Dunn said. “Members of the public can’t adopt directly from the event, but we can provide information for them to adopt at the shelter.”
For more information on adopting at WHS, call Dunn at 503-585-5900, ext. 312.
