Henry and Beezus

Henry and Beezus, written by Beverly Cleary and illustrated by Louis Darling, is such a fun book! I don’t often read books about boys or that are tailored to a male audience, so I really enjoyed the different perspective this book offered. I was surprised to find out that it was really no different than a book with a female main character. This book stars Henry Huggins, who gets into all sorts of hilarious situations, like having to eat dog food and finding 49 boxes of bubble gum in a vacant lot.

Although it was published in 1952, this book seems to be fairly universal. I owned it when I was little, and I know that I have read it before, so it must still be appealing to children of today. Beverly Cleary is one of those authors whose books are timeless. I would enjoy reading one of her books now as much as I would have enjoyed reading it when it first came out. Most kids can relate to not liking kids of the other gender for a while. Henry often thinks about how things might be better if Beezus and her sister Ramona didn’t have to come along with him, but he usually ends up being glad that at least Beezus is there.

Some of the characters in the story really stress me out. For example, when Henry was trying to bid on a bike at the auction and Ramona said she was going to throw up in order to get her way, I really empathized with Henry. I understood how he felt about just wanting to get a bike and not wanting to have to deal with a little girl who wanted to go home. I also empathized with Henry when Scooter kept coming around and all Henry wanted to do was teach his dog Ribsy to stop fetching and chewing up the papers. He was just trying to not get in trouble. I think that the way kids are able to relate to the characters is one of the qualities that make this book so timeless.

In this book, Cleary seems to really emphasize not giving up. Henry could have easily given up on his dream to have his own bike after selling bubblegum didn’t work or after he bought a girl’s bike that didn’t really work, but he didn’t. Instead he didn’t get discouraged and ended up getting a roundabout reward for his hard work. Although he didn’t think of the $50 worth of coupons to a beauty parlor as a reward at first, it was through selling the coupons that he was able to buy his new bike.