a little girl's too muchness

March 1, 2020 9:02 PM

Ramona loves the world with ferocity; she does not so much want to disturb it as she yearns to discover, to turn it over, examine every piece and crook and marvel at why each creature, commodity, and substance exists the way it does. “She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting she had to find out what happened next.” Rachel Vorona Cote on Ramona Quimby and the right to be Too Much.
posted by ChuraChura (51 comments total)

When I was a boy, my mother was careful to spend time with me with all of the illustrated Ramona books. It had never dawned on me until now that "girlhood," as a phenomenon, might be importantly different in those books, versus so many other media portrayals.

As a little boy, I just felt real comfortable with Ramona really needing the red galoshes, or frustrating Beezus, or wearing a dress. I had no mode of discourse to discuss how it might be different. It fit my experiences, and expressed emotional states that I had no way to discuss as a small child, and it was really important to me.

Now I see ways it could carry a great deal more weight for other folk. I feel oddly short-sighted for not having seen it before.
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 10:18 PM on March 1, 2020 [16 favorites]

I wrote something (unfinished) about a year ago that feels like this. It was just recognizing the right to take up space in the world, to exist, and not be small. Being too much seems to be in line with this; to unabashedly be yourself:

I have been too much at times, and I’ve paid for it. But never regretted it. I still wish to be too much all the time. I hope to be too much. And I wish for the days that all the little girls in the world have no idea they are too much.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 10:20 PM on March 1, 2020 [8 favorites]

This made me cry. As a girl, now woman, who has spent most of my adult life trying to pick apart the tangle of unkindness and contempt and cruelty directed at me for being Too Much, I very much hope that other little girls will learn that our authentic selves are the best gift we can give the world. To this day, one of my nicknames bestowed on me by my very oldest and most wonderful friend is:

"Oh, Ramona."

And I'm proud of that.
posted by fairlynearlyready at 10:33 PM on March 1, 2020 [28 favorites]

I became a fan of a band called Beezus for no other reason than my ridiculous enthusiasm for the Ramona Quimby books.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:51 PM on March 1, 2020 [5 favorites]

I loved the sensitive way Beezus is a real person too.
posted by freethefeet at 2:57 AM on March 2, 2020 [17 favorites]

I've been listening to the ramona audiobooks and noted that 1950s ramona isn't stopped from being given a truck; the main objection of her parents to her favorite book is how it's written rather than the subject; 1970s Ramona's xmas pageant features 3 wise PERSONS after the boys 1st picked got cold feet.
posted by brujita at 3:58 AM on March 2, 2020 [8 favorites]

The Ramona books were a huge part of my childhood but I never consciously considered the throughline of Ramona's worry that she is unlovable because everyone around her including her own family views her as a disruptive nuisance. Going to need to sit with that for awhile.
posted by Flannery Culp at 6:05 AM on March 2, 2020 [9 favorites]

Although readers are meant to empathize with those who are baffled by Ramona—like her teacher, the pedestrian Mrs. Griggs

Really? Maybe it's because I'm a 100% grade-A certified Ramona, but hard disagree on this point. Interesting article, though.
posted by the_blizz at 6:06 AM on March 2, 2020 [8 favorites]

Although readers are meant to empathize with those who are baffled by Ramona—like her teacher, the pedestrian Mrs. Griggs

This definitely does not reflect how I experienced the books as a kid, but maybe adults/parents would have read them differently?

I loved the books and reread them many times. I'm sure it was good for me as a boy, in ways I was totally unaware at the time, to read the stories of her being Too Much. Those books are great children's literature and I hope are still being read and reread.

(It is tangential to the focus of this article, but one of the things that I responded to about the stories as a kid is that they are set in the pacific northwest, rather than the east coast (eg Stuart Little, the UK (eg Narnia), or pretty much everywhere else (eg Kipling), like every other book I was reading at the time.)
posted by Dip Flash at 6:39 AM on March 2, 2020 [6 favorites]

I read a bunch of Henry Huggins books back in the '70s when I was a boy. I was really into them, read all the ones I could find. I remember ending up reading the Beezus and Ramona books after I couldn't find anymore Huggins books (no Amazon then, this was all Chicago Public Library)... and I really liked those, too! I remember thinking I wish I had friend-girls, as I had no sisters, two brothers and lived in a neighborhood with a few boys but mostly a bunch of old-timers who wanted us to Steer Clear of Their Lawns (funny typing this... we lived solidly within the bounds of the City's north side in blue-collar Lincoln Square, but it comes off sounding like Mayberry).

I couldn't tell you a single plot point from any of those books. And though 1977 was lightyears past when they were written, the books felt pretty timeless to me, as we had fairly free-range childhoods, even living in a major metropolitan city. Beverly Cleary clearly (heh) tapped into something powerful. Do kids still read all her books? I know they made a Ramona movie, but what about the Huggins books?
posted by SoberHighland at 6:42 AM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

I strongly identified with Ramona as a young boy because it was one of the few books I read where the family is portrayed as poor. The author of the article describes them as "working class" but I remember them as poor--it was a big deal when Ramona squeezed out a whole tube of toothpaste, not because it was a mess, but because it was a waste of toothpaste which they had to put in a bag to keep and use later. Going out to dinner was a big, big deal. Ramona fantasized about getting cast in a tv commercial so her family wouldn't have to worry about money. Maybe all that's an artifact of middle class life in 1950's, and they weren't that poor (I might also be misremembering). But as a boy reading it in the 1980's, I could definitely see my family as a Ramona peer.

Anyway, I have kids now that are too young for such books, but I'm not sure when I could start reading it aloud to them, or if I should let them read them for themselves. I think I read them all when I was in second grade or third grade, but I'm not sure.
posted by skewed at 6:52 AM on March 2, 2020 [16 favorites]

As a more or less self-contained older sister did I ever feel Beezus. She was interesting too!
posted by jeather at 6:54 AM on March 2, 2020 [3 favorites]

As a kid, I think I was probably much more of a Beatrice Quimby, but I grew up to be a Ramona--forever getting into things. "I was so much older then...I am younger than that now".
posted by Excommunicated Cardinal at 6:55 AM on March 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

In the books, Sansa and Arya Stark are clear descendants of Beezus and Ramona—with Tragedy turned up to Eleven. The HBO adaptation glosses over a lot of this (can't do this stuff to real-world child actors), but book-Sansa is a gorgeous, spoiled Tween Princess, dreaming of boys and (literally) knights in shining armor coming to whisk her away, while Arya is the not-conventionally pretty younger sister who wants None of That. Problematic? Yes, but in the books, these characters are children and it makes their stories all the more poignant. Sansa is being groomed to be traded off as a political pawn and prized Brood Mare, and Arya is quite literally stuck in the "What the Hell Do We Do With Her?" slot. Arya is loud, wild, spirited and really has no place in that Patriarchal world.

Trainwreck TV series aside, I defend those first 2-3 books of A Song of Ice and Fire to death as Worth Reading.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:00 AM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

I thought the essay was really thoughtful and interesting and made me think about Ramona in a new way. It's interesting that the essay convinced me I have a lot in common with her and could have really identified with her but instead I was just really irritated by her constant complaining and her small little world and boring, small-minded adults. I had to read all the books anyway though because there just were not that many books to read.
posted by bleep at 7:21 AM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

Huge fan of the books as a child, and as an adult this is the reminder I needed to finally, finally seek out the Dell Yearling versions of all those books with the covers I remember from the 80s (the only correct covers, as far as I'm concerned).

Also worth pointing out that Beverly Cleary, at almost 104, is still with us! (knock on wood)
posted by namewithoutwords at 7:35 AM on March 2, 2020 [13 favorites]

Although readers are meant to empathize with those who are baffled by Ramona—like her teacher, the pedestrian Mrs. Griggs
...
This definitely does not reflect how I experienced the books as a kid, but maybe adults/parents would have read them differently?


I listened to the Ramona books with my kids on audiobook last year and the books let us into multiple characters' perspectives. The very first few chapters of the series are definitely outside of Ramona's head, but as the series progresses we see more and more from her perspective.

We re-listen to the first book's chapter on Beezus's birthday semi-regularly. One of the many things I love about that chapter is that it gives explicit permission to Beezus to recognize her messy emotions about the situation. The Quimby parents are *way* more patient than my parents were, so as a parent myself now the series was a good reminder to loosen up about my kids' behavior.

(Also, my kids are extremely sensitive, because in a later book, when a terrible day culminated in the Quimby's mother swatting their father's butt with the pancake spatula, they were shocked and outraged because SHE HIT HIM!)
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:49 AM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

The author of the article describes them as "working class" but I remember them as poor

Working class seems right. "We are scrimping and saving", Ramona importantly parrots to a neighbor at one point. Mrs Quimby buys cheap cuts of meat (the tongue scene) and don't let anything go to waste (besides the toothpaste, when Ramona takes one bite out of every apple in the cellar she salvages the rest by cutting around the bite marks and making applesauce) but I never had the sense there wouldn't be food on the table or they were at risk of, say, losing the house.

As an adult, Ramona and Her Father may be my favorite. Mr Quimby loses his job, takes a new one he hates (night shift in a grocery warehouse), and tries to regain his love of art and become an art teacher, as he'd wanted to do before Mrs Quimby got pregnant with Beezus and he left college to get married. It's remarkable that all of this is text, not subtext, in a book written in the 70s and aimed at eight-year-olds.
posted by Flannery Culp at 7:52 AM on March 2, 2020 [20 favorites]

Beverly Cleary is a national treasure. I loved these books growing up (still do!) and Ramona was very influential on me as a kid. I also highly recommend Cleary’s two autobiographies, “A Girl From Yamhill” and “My Own Two Feet”. The first covers her childhood up through high school, and the second is college through her first book getting accepted to be published. They’re a clear-headed, well written look at a life with a difficult mother, and I’ve read them several times as an adult.
posted by skycrashesdown at 7:55 AM on March 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

Do kids still read all her books?

My daughter certainly did, about 8 or 9 years ago. The only time I remember reading them as a child myself was when we read an excerpt from the Henry Huggins book titled “Gallons of Guppies” in school. My daughter really enjoyed them though, and after reading this article I am especially glad she was into them.
posted by TedW at 8:06 AM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Add me to the list of boys who loved Ramona and didn't notice it was unusual. In retrospect, I guess it was. But, she just seemed like my friends and me at the time. I'm not sure I'd encountered many counter examples yet. Interesting! (The last half of the essay seems like it would require watching rather a lot of films to truly understand. But, that's okay. I don't need to understand everything.)
posted by eotvos at 8:28 AM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

At age 7, I, too, went to school with my pajamas on under my clothes. Mainly because I wanted to know what it felt like. Ramona was right, you get really sweaty, really quick.

I also cracked a raw egg on my head to see what it was like. But I did that with my mother's permission in the shower on hair washing day. It was pretty gross.

I loved Ramona and still do.
posted by teleri025 at 8:37 AM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

I never read these books. As a kid, I saw most kids books as patronizing. Would I as an adult find value in reading them now? As I don’t have kids, I just never considered going back to read a kids book before, but it sounds like I really missed out.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 8:44 AM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

By all means, turn on the dawnzer and read a couple of them. Also “Socks”, a stand-alone story about a cat.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 8:47 AM on March 2, 2020 [16 favorites]

the throughline of Ramona's worry that she is unlovable because everyone around her including her own family views her as a disruptive nuisance.

That's why I bounced hard off the Ramona books.

I already had every non-parent in my life telling me I was Too Much. I was Officially Diagnosed As Too Much. Being So Much I Change Everything For Everyone was my daily existence. I utterly refused to let that crap creep into my entertainment too.

My overwhelming response to the series has always been a burning desire to free Ramona from the hell her well-meaning but ignorant and traumatizing family was putting her through.

The article doesn't mention Lilo and Stitch. That's an interesting omission.
posted by Ahniya at 8:48 AM on March 2, 2020 [8 favorites]

I am too a Merry Sunshine.
posted by corey flood at 9:56 AM on March 2, 2020 [10 favorites]

As a kid I identified strongly with Beezus, the older sister who found it easy to behave as expected, and now I'm raising one kid much like Beezus and one much like Ramona. I loved the books as a kid and now I love them as a parent and love reading them with my daughters.
posted by SeedStitch at 10:14 AM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

This was a little bit hard to read -- I kind of bounced off of the Ramona books because I was extremely Beezus as a child. I was very quiet and very good and very no trouble at all, because I had learned that was what I needed to do to be loved. So, possibly, I was not so different from Ramona after all, it just dumped me in a different place.

I am now grown and Too Much and less afraid of not being loved because of it, so that's something to chew over.
posted by kalimac at 10:39 AM on March 2, 2020 [5 favorites]

I definitely remember reading some of these books as a boy in the early 90s (or, more likely, having them read to me by a teacher who was very much about reading books aloud to the whole class...Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume and also some Encyclopedia Brown stories that don't quite fit with the works of the Cleary or Blume but were nonetheless enjoyable for different reasons).

As others have said, I don't remember thinking we (the child-readers) were supposed to empathize with everyone else who was exasperated by Ramona. That said, it's been a long time and I was probably only 8 or 9 the last time I had any direct experience with these books.

I do look forward to reading them with my daughter in a few years. From what I recall of the books, and what's been shared in the FPP and this thread, she's at least a little like Ramona and I worry the world will crush that out of her.
posted by asnider at 10:53 AM on March 2, 2020

I feel like Rachel Vorona Cote probably meant that the characters who are exasperated by Ramona are written empathetically, not that Cleary is siding with them (though I am not Rachel Vorona Cote and cannot say for sure.)

Additionally, I loved this, as I loved the Ramona books as a little boy.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:17 AM on March 2, 2020

I feel like Rachel Vorona Cote probably meant that the characters who are exasperated by Ramona are written empathetically, not that Cleary is siding with them

On re-reading the relevant passage, I think you're correct.
posted by asnider at 11:34 AM on March 2, 2020

Oh man. As parent to a Ramona, I loved these books even more on reread last summer and cringed in recognition at a lot of what’s in this article. It is incredibly difficult to run effective interference between a Too Much child and the rest of the world. Thanks for the link.
posted by eirias at 12:02 PM on March 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

I also cracked a raw egg on my head to see what it was like. But I did that with my mother's permission in the shower on hair washing day. It was pretty gross.

I called my 13-year-old sister Pizzaface, because Ramona did.

It did not go well.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 12:46 PM on March 2, 2020 [8 favorites]

Love love love Beverly Cleary. Her portrayal of Henry Huggins is pitch-perfect. ("Sometimes a boy feels like he needs to act like other boys..." "A boy could always find use for another flashlight...") I only recently read the two autobiographies, which were excellent.

Even though I was quiet like Beezus, I identified with Ramona on many levels, in that she seemed to be a sensitive kid, worrying about whether the family had enough money or if her teacher liked her or if her cat was sad for having to eat lousy food. She felt things very strongly; she cared; and she took on a ton of emotional labor. I could relate.

But then there was that moment when I read (I think it was) Ramona and Her Father, when she thought that the absolute worst thing in the world was waiting in line with her mother at the bank. It was then that I shouted "OMG BEVERLY CLEARY UNDERSTANDS ME MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE UNIVERSE." Kids today, they have no idea.
posted by Melismata at 1:01 PM on March 2, 2020 [7 favorites]

Yes! The 2 memoirs by Beverly Cleary are sooooo good. If Ramona is for childhood, those two books are for leaving home. Her story is such an encapsulation of womanhood and independence in that time. And huge bonus if you live in the areas described in the book as place is so important to her and it’s thrilling to see, for example, old Portland through her eyes. Please read her memoirs!!
posted by amanda at 1:47 PM on March 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

I loved Ramona so. I loved her so much that I named my cat Ramona.

Also, in kindergarten, during a game of duck duck goose, I pulled a girl's curly hair because Ramona had pulled a girl's boing-boing curls, and I got in so much trouble.
posted by millipede at 2:00 PM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

The Ramona books were a huge comfort to kid me. I wasn't gregarious like Ramona, but I was extremely curious, irreverent and independent. I constantly broke things trying to see how they worked, "improved" stuff around the house with my own artwork, unintentionally insulted people, destroyed my poor mother's belongings incorporating them into my inventions, hurt myself trying stunts out, and infuriated my teachers.

It meant so much to me that Cleary didn't pretend everything is OK for little girls like Ramona. We are viewed as pests! Our families can be really mean! And it really hurts sometimes! But the parts about Ramona's family helped me think about others a little bit and see how my actions could be annoying to others - especially when your family doesn't have much money. Maybe I should ask before I cut my mother's pantyhose into pieces to make dolls. She might need them. Maybe I should check before I tape over another CCR cassette with my own songs. She might really love that tape.
posted by Feminazgul at 2:11 PM on March 2, 2020 [9 favorites]

My overwhelming response to the series has always been a burning desire to free Ramona from the hell her well-meaning but ignorant and traumatizing family was putting her through.

My memory is that her family was generally loving and tolerant, if somewhat exasperated by her at times. Which is actually pretty reasonable when you have a kid who does things like take a bite out of every single apple you have stored, when your family is in financially tight circumstances.
posted by tavella at 2:12 PM on March 2, 2020 [5 favorites]

I didn't bounce off the Ramona books, exactly, but like SoberHighland I read them only after running out of the Henry Huggins books (SoberHighland, did you go to the old Hild Regional Library?), and would be exasperated at Ramona's Too Much antics. But, here's the thing: in retrospect, I may have been interested in Henry Huggins because I was trying to figure out what a regular boy was like, and in reality, I was probably a bit Too Much. I can sure remember Ramona a lot better than I remember Beezus or Henry.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:34 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

The Ramona books were everything to me as a kid. They needed the balance that Beezus brought and how boring Howie was and how much did you love when Ramona zoned in on what Howie’s little sister needed at the wedding? There are not many weeks go by where I am not just a little tempted to some toothpaste sculpting or celebrate with Kleenex confetti...
posted by Tandem Affinity at 6:18 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

WHAT HAPPENED TO HOWIE’S OLDER SISTER
posted by Melismata at 7:08 PM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

I checked out the book this is from, from the library :Too Much - How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today, and it looks pretty good. That is all.
posted by hap_hazard at 7:43 PM on March 2, 2020

I really liked this essay / excerpt. And Cleary is a national treasure (whom I can never entirely keep from intermingling with Le Guin in my brain, but I think neither would mind).

I think the Ramona books are probably objectively better? but my mind was blown by reading Henry Huggins and Ellen Tebbits and seeing people from each others' points of view. It was not all but part of the understanding that whoa every one of these people is a person and the center of a world.

The audiobooks... read by Andrea Martin, I see it is -- are, to our taste (no personal offense meant, Andrea Martin), excruciating, so my kids haven't gotten these on trips, when I have THE POWER to choose the audiobook.
posted by away for regrooving at 11:08 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

It's interesting to be rereading kids' books with an eye to executive function. Is this age-typical executive function? How about that? I'm seeing a pattern here. I'm not equipped to be an ADHD / autism spectrum / other diagnosis but I see you here, Anne Shirley.
posted by away for regrooving at 11:14 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

There's a set of Ramona audiobooks read by Stockard Channing! And they are as delightful as you expect. A++ would listen again.
posted by Flannery Culp at 4:59 AM on March 3, 2020 [4 favorites]

If the Henry Huggins books and the Ramona books kinda feel different, it's because they're separated in time by quite a bit! I would say that the Ramona books are pretty recent, but the 70's and 80's aren't recent anymore I"M NOT OLD.

1950: Henry Huggins
1952: Henry and Beezus
1954: Henry and Ribsy
1955: Beezus and Ramona (an outlier here, but they would return...)
1957: Henry and the Paper Route
1962: Henry and the Clubhouse
1964: Ribsy (and that's all for Henry and his own books)

1968: Ramona the Pest
(1973: Socks)
1975: Ramona the Brave
1977: Ramona and Her Father
1979: Ramona and Her Mother
1981: Ramona Quimby, Age 8
1984: Ramona Forever
1999: Ramona's World (which I have not read)
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:23 AM on March 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

It's clearly time to read these with my kid. I look forward to the perspective shift from myself as a pest to myself as a parent (and occasional pest).
posted by amanda at 8:44 AM on March 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

whoa every one of these people is a person and the center of a world.

(1973: Socks)

Yes, and this cat is a center of a world too. No other author has ever gotten into the mind of a cat as well as Mrs. Cleary. Read Socks.
posted by Melismata at 2:36 PM on March 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

Just checking in as a former child hypersensitive to other kids' behavior leading to suboptimal outcomes - I see you, non rule followers! How are we ever going to get Good Behavior Pretzels after recess? - who also just did. not. get. the appeal of Ramona when reading these books at the same age as the title character. These days, I have more control over my life, and thus less anxiety about other people's behavior getting me into bad situations (systemic issues and non-local politics exempted), so I'm sure if I read them now I'd find the portrayal of a Too Much girl delightful. But as a kid? Shit, just watching Oscar the Grouch made me squirm. Ramona was basically my first experience of a (personally) unlikable protagonist, and her antics made me viscerally uncomfortable.

which I told no one, because clearly the world expected me to like these books and I was a good child who would not disappoint dammit
posted by deludingmyself at 7:10 PM on March 3, 2020 [4 favorites]

I was such a Beezus that I'm a little surprised I liked Ramona as much as I did, but I still think about Ramona all the time - "I can't believe I read the whole thing" was basically my mantra through grad school.

In the books, Sansa and Arya Stark are clear descendants of Beezus and Ramona—with Tragedy turned up to Eleven. The HBO adaptation glosses over a lot of this (can't do this stuff to real-world child actors), but book-Sansa is a gorgeous, spoiled Tween Princess, dreaming of boys and (literally) knights in shining armor coming to whisk her away, while Arya is the not-conventionally pretty younger sister who wants None of That. Problematic? Yes, but in the books, these characters are children and it makes their stories all the more poignant. Sansa is being groomed to be traded off as a political pawn and prized Brood Mare, and Arya is quite literally stuck in the "What the Hell Do We Do With Her?" slot. Arya is loud, wild, spirited and really has no place in that Patriarchal world.

I have not read/watched GoT, but I'm also kind of getting a Susan and Lucy dynamic here? Man, older sisters never get to be the fun one.
posted by naoko at 10:23 PM on March 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

I'm reading these books with my almost-8-year-old son at the moment, and he loves them. For all the reasons someone said above, "Ramona and her Father" is my favourite. I last read these books as a kid and I empathized with Ramona, of course. But as an adult now, I definitely have some sympathy for the adults. Still what I love the most is that in these books I see the sensitivity and care with which Cleary writes about the kids' interior lives and I am reminded to be gentler with my own 5-year-old who is very often Too Much.
posted by arcticwoman at 7:37 AM on March 4, 2020 [5 favorites]