Serious Business: Much of the drama in the books may be seen this way from an adult perspective, but as noted above, it's justified in-universe because a lot of minor-in-the-big-scheme-of-things stuff is Serious Business when you're a kid.

An Aesop: Beezus and Ramona has the message that it's okay to be sometimes fed up with your sibling, because siblings just don't get along sometimes and that's part of life. Poke the Poodle: In Ramona the Brave, where she's 6, Ramona is so angry she threatens to say a bad word. So she shouts "GUTS!" at the top of her lungs again and again, and rather than get in trouble, she gets laughed at. Do Not Call Me "Paul": A reverse of this trope applies with Beezus in Ramona the Brave, when she demands to be called by her birth name of Beatrice after some boys overhear Ramona calling her Beezus and tease Beezus for it. She gets over it after a little while and lets her family say Beezus again, but from then on Ramona is only allowed to call her Beatrice in public. Ascended Extra: Beezus and Ramona, ascended from extras in the Henry Huggins series, and Ramona herself within her own book series starting with Ramona the Pest.

Ramona Quimby Series Order

Ramona considers herself to be daring, and is in some cases astonished to understand that others don’t concur. It’s the late spring after kindergarten, and things are changing at the Quimby house. Mrs. Quimby has low maintenance work, and the family is having an additional room included to the house. Ramona valiantly stands up to spooks at the playground and a mean pooch on her approach to class, however she isn’t set up for how frightening it feels going to rest in the fresh out of the plastic new room – alone. She moved to California to attend the University of California, Berkeley, and after graduation with a B.A in English in 1938, studied at the School of Librarianship at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she earned a degree in librarianship in 1939. Her first job was as a librarian in Yakima, Washington, where she met many children who were searching for the same books that she had always hoped to find as a child herself. In response, she wrote her first book, Henry Huggins, which was published in 1950. Beezus and Ramona, Cleary's first novel to feature the Quimby sisters as the central focus of the story, was published in 1955, although Beezus and Ramona made frequent appearances in the Henry Huggins series as supporting characters.

Meaningful Echo: Kindergarten-age Ramona, who has just learned about Show and Tell, asks what Beezus is taking for her Show and Tell. Beezus informs her that older kids don't have Show and Tell. Two years later, Ramona gets in trouble for taking her pajamas to school, and Beezus suggests she might have taken them for Show and Tell. Ramona mentally grumbles that Beezus is just trying to make her look silly, as she knows perfectly well that second-graders don't have Show and Tell. Express Lane Limit: Mr. Quimby works as a supermarket cashier for a while. The express lane has a nine-item limit, but customers frequently try to sneak through with ten or eleven items. The customers often count the items in each other's baskets and argue among themselves. Naturally, Mr. Quimby dislikes working the express lane. Ramona to Beezus, especially when she was younger. She constantly bugs Beezus to play with her when Beezus wants to do other things and often embarrasses her in front of others (such as stealing one of her classmates' candy, disrupting the board game she was playing with Henry, and destroying Beezus's birthday cake by shoving her doll inside the batter while it was in the oven). Ramona the Pest (1968) — Ramona is in kindergarten. Too-perfect Susan, and poor struggling Davy, are introduced. This is the first book to be told from Ramona's point of view.The novel contributed to the unique cultural identity of Southern California and the whole of the Southwest. The architecture of the missions had recently gained national exposure and local restoration projects were just beginning. Railroad lines to Southern California were just opening and, combined with the emotions stirred by the novel, the region suddenly gained national attention. [2] Mission Revival Style architecture became popular from about 1890 to 1915. Many examples still stand throughout California and other southwest areas.

Fantastic Slurs: Downplayed. The first-graders will often refer to the kindergarteners insultingly as "kindergarten babies" despite only being about a year older than them. Roberta Quimby: Beezus and Ramona's baby sister, who is born at the end of Ramona Forever. Ramona is jealous that Roberta has all her parents' attention, but at the end of "Ramona's World" learns to love her sister. Her middle name is Day. It jumped out at Cleary (while composing Henry Huggins) that the greater part of the characters she had made hitherto had no siblings or sisters. “Somebody ought to have a kin,” she wrote in My Own Two Feet, “so I hurled in a younger sibling to clarify Beezus’ epithet. When it came time to name the sister, I caught a neighbor shout to another whose name was Ramona. I wrote in “Ramona,” made a few references to her, gave her one brief scene, and felt that was the end of her. Little did I dream, to utilize a trite expression from books of my adolescence, that she would assume control books of her own?” Mrs. Swink: An elderly lady who wears pants suits and calls Ramona "Juanita". Mrs. Swink was also who inspired Ramona and Howie to make tin can stilts in “Ramona and Her Father”

Señora Moreno delays the sheep shearing, a major event on the rancho, awaiting the arrival of a group of Native Americans from Temecula, whom she always hires for that work. The head of the Native American sheep shearers is Alessandro, son of Pablo Assís, chief of the tribe. Alessandro is portrayed as tall, wise, honest, and piously Catholic. Señora Moreno also awaits a priest, Father Salvierderra, from Santa Barbara. He will hear confessions of the workers and celebrate mass with them in her chapel after the shearing, before they return to Temecula. DeLyser, Dydia Y. (2005). Ramona Memories: Tourism and the Shaping of Southern California. University Of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-4572-8. School Play: In "Ramona and Her Father", Ramona is cast as a sheep in the Christmas play, but due to money issues from Mr. Quimby's layoff, she has to wear white pyjamas with sheep ears sewn on instead of a proper sheep costume.