Ramona Quimby, Age 8

infobox Book
name = Ramona Quimby, Age 8


image_caption =
author = Beverly Cleary
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = Ramona Quimby
genre = Novel
publisher =
release_date = 1981
media_type =
pages =
isbn =
preceded_by = Ramona and Her Mother
followed_by = Ramona Forever

"Ramona Quimby, Age 8" is a juvenile fiction novel written by Beverly Cleary. It is the fifth installment in the popular Ramona Quimby series. It is illustrated by Alan Tiegreen and was first published in 1981. The current edition was illustrated by Tracy Dockray. It is a 1982 Newbery Honor award winner. It has also been published in Houghton Mifflin books.

Plot

The story opens with Ramona starting third grade and being excited about riding the school bus all by herself. At the same time, her older sister Beezus is excited about starting junior high, while their father begins taking college classes toward becoming a teacher.

Once Ramona arrives at school, she instantly clicks with her teacher Mrs. Whaley - "a whale with a 'y' for a tail", and starts signing her name, "Ramona Quimby, Age 8". But of course, as this is normal for Ramona, things don't always go as planned. One day, she takes a hard-boiled egg to school for lunch, and when she whacks it against her head to remove the shell, she realizes it wasn't hard boiled as she had requested of her mother and gets egg in her hair. In another chapter, Ramona and Beezus claim not to like tongue because of "those yucky little bumps", so the next day, they are good until they have to make chicken thighs and cornbread. They make a mess, as they also make rice. However, they use some other ingredients because they ran out of the right ones. They use Cream of Wheat in the cornbread with the cornmeal, and banana yogurt and chili powder. In another chapter, Ramona eats some oatmeal for breakfast, but it causes her to be to sick and does the "most terrible, horrible, dreadful, awful thing"; she throws up in front of everybody.

After Ramona recovers, she has hangups about a book report she is assigned to do, and comes up with a clever way to present it. In the final chapter, the Quimbys are in a generally bad mood on a rainy Sunday, hardly a novelty in Oregon, complete with Beezus being upset over not being able to spend the night at her friend Mary Jane's house and Ramona being forced to clean up her room. So to cheer everyone up, their father decides they should go out to dinner for the first time in months, to Whopperburger, where the whole family realizes that a man, who had strangely asked Ramona if she's been nice to her mother, has paid for their meal, and they go home happy.

References in pop culture

In the book series "A Series of Unfortunate Events" by Lemony Snicket, the man who paid for Ramona's meal appears as one of the V.F.D. members.

In the Family Guy episode "", Stewie references a humorous line in the book by replying, "None of your beeswax, Ramona" to Brian.

External links

* [http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-0380709562-3 "Ramona Quimby, Age 8" at Powell's Books]
* [http://www.harperchildrens.com/catalog/cleary_books_excerpt.asp?isbn=0380709562 First chapter of "Ramona Quimby, Age 8" at harperchildrens.com]