A Girl from Yamhill
By BEVERLY CLEARY
Beverly Cleary is an important writer of children's literature. She won the Newbery Award for Dear Mr. Henshaw and her Ramona books have been very popular with children. In A Girl from Yamhill, however, she has written an account of her own early years.

Beverly was two years old as World War I ended. She lived with her parents on the family farm in Yamhill, Oregon, a place she loved and remembered as safe and loving. Her father's grandparents had been pioneers, and she was always admonished to be brave because of her "pioneer ancestors."

She had a difficult relationship with her mother, but is generous in her description of Mable Atlee Bunn: "Small, pert, vivacious, excitable, . . . with a sense of style." She was a "little schoolmarm from the East who stepped off a train in the West to teach school." Mable was ambitious for her only child and made many sacrifices for her when financial worries troubled the family, yet Beverly never felt sure of her love.

As a child on the farm, Beverly had a freedom that would be hard to attain today. Her father taught her the rules of safety and trusted her to obey them. "Never play in the grain bin; the grain could slide down and smother me. Never walk behind the horses; they might be startled and kick. Always shut and fasten gates to keep animals from getting into fields." Because the rules seemed sensible and interesting, she never disobeyed.

Her mother's rules, on the other hand, were less interesting. "I must not swear. I must not swing on gates. Never pick other people's flowers. Never look under saloon doors." As Cleary recounts these experiences, she also gives a picture of the time and place, with appropriate touches of humor. She was taught never to be afraid, and she took the lesson so to heart that many times during her growing-up years, she was unable to ask for her parents' help when she was frightened.

The days in the country were happy ones for her and her father, but her hard-working mother missed the culture and companionship that she found in the city. She founded a local library and often read to Beverly. Beverly was anxious to read for herself and was looking forward to first grade when the family left the farm for the city because there was not enough money.

The move was not scary for her because "I was secure. Yamhill had taught me that the world was a safe and beautiful place, where children were treated with kindness, patience, and tolerance." The reader can anticipate from that foreshadowing that life will not be as smooth soon. Indeed it was not.

Sometimes when we read about children's trouble at school, with teachers or classmates or parents, we forget how awful they can be for a child, while to us they may seem trivial or normal episodes that are part of growing up. Cleary is a skillful writer who conveys what it was like for her, and we may remember our own struggles.

Her absorbing memoir is available at the Mary Willis Library.

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