Braverism

Book #6: Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary

This book was published in 1975 so was therefore around when I was in elementary school. Why was I never introduced to Ramona? She's so cute and spunky and full of enough mischief for the goody-two-shoes-2nd grade version of me to vicariously live through that I think I would have actually enjoyed reading these books. Another thing I really enjoy about this book is the use of vivid language. SO MANY vocabulary words! Astound, predicament, aghast, humiliation, clattered, hastily, glorious, dignity, dawdling, muster, incident. Loved it! I give it 4 stars. I included some quotes I liked from the book. I think I got a bit carried away.

"Agreeing was so pleasant she wished she and her sister could agree more often." (p. 12)

"'If I told you, it wouldn't be a secret any more,' said Mrs. Quimby.

That, Ramona felt, was just about the most exasperating sentence ever spoken by a grown-up." (p. 18)

"They were no longer six-year-olds. They were the strongest people in the world. They were giants." (p. 38)

"Ramona liked good lively comedies with lots of children and animals and grown-ups doing silly things. Next to that she liked cat food commercials." (p. 88)

"Crying had left Ramona tired and limp, but somehow she felt better, more at peace with herself, as if trouble and guilt had been washed away by tears." (p. 148)

“IF” by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:


If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!