| Ramona Quimby | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Beezus and Ramona |
| Last appearance | Ramona's World |
| Created by | Beverly Cleary |
| Portrayed by | Sarah Polley (Ramona) Joey King (Ramona and Beezus) (Ramona's Big World) |
| Information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Family | Mr. Robert Quimby (Father) Mrs. Dorothy Quimby (Mother) Beezus Quimby (Older Sister) Roberta Quimby (Younger Sister) Beatrice (Aunt) Howie Kemp (Cousin) Picky - Picky (Pet Cat) |
Ramona Geraldine Quimby is a character from a series of novels by Beverly Cleary.[1] She starts out in the Henry Huggins series as the pestering little sister of Henry's friend Beatrice, called "Beezus" by Ramona and her family. She was given a larger role in the novel Beezus and Ramona. Then the series concentrated on her from kindergarten onward.
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Ramona is a very imaginative child. Often her imagination and her pretend games lead to embarrassing situations. To Ramona, all these situations are logical but most of the adults in Ramona's life do not understand her behavior. One such occasion is when Ramona pretends to be a fireman and goes to school with her pajamas on under her clothes. She begins to overheat and eventually is forced to tell her teacher. Ramona frequently copies what she sees on television or what other people around her are doing, such as attempting to look like a boy in a commercial but ending up with her hair tangled with burrs.
Ramona has the appearance of being a very happy-go-lucky, independent and brave child but is actually much more sensitive than she appears. She becomes easily upset by incidents involving unfair rules, unfair adults or being treated younger than she actually is. When she is not allowed to visit her little sister, Roberta, in hospital, due to her age, Ramona begins to feel depressed and sick. Ramona is upset for most of grade three due to a misunderstood comment made by her teacher, Mrs. Whaley. Her problems are usually resolved when she talks to her parents, sister or her teacher. Ramona and Beezus have a love/hate relationship. Ramona frequently annoys or unintentionally hurts Beezus' feelings but when Ramona needs support, Beezus usually helps her. As the girls await the birth of their new sister, Beezus calms a nervous Ramona and allows Ramona to share her bed for the night.
She is a talented artist but is bad at spelling. She says herself that she gets excited very easily, unlike her friend Howie who later becomes her cousin after her Aunt Bea marries Howie's uncle Hobart. She sometimes dresses in unique costumes on Halloween and during a Christmas play to get attention. Yet she never wants to hide inside her costume. She wants people to know that the "baddest witch in the world" and the black-nosed sheep is Ramona.
Ramona also enjoys making noise, whether it's pounding bricks on the concrete with Howie in their game Brick Factory or clunking down the street on tin can stilts.
She has a worn doll with green hair (actually, yellow, but with liquid bluing, an idea she got from Howie's grandmother) called Chevrolet in the early books. In Ramona and Her Mother, Ramona admits that she always thought Chevrolet was the most beautiful name in the world and doesn't understand why the adults are laughing. Also in Ramona and Her Mother, we meet a stuffed elephant named Ella Funt. Ramona tries to spend time with her mother while sewing pants for Ella Funt, but discovers that pants don't fit elephants very well! Ramona's other toys include her tricycle, floppy bunny ears, and her rubber doll, Bendix. Bendix is the doll that Ramona shoves in the oven on Beezus' 10th birthday, thereby managing to ruin TWO birthday cakes in one day during Beezus and Ramona (the first one she ruined by throwing egg shells in the batter).
In the later books, like Ramona and Her Mother, Ramona and Her Father, Ramona Quimby, Age 8, Ramona Forever and Ramona's World, Ramona is a bit more mature, being in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades. She starts liking a boy named Danny, or Yard Ape, who is mean at the start, but starts being nice to Ramona. In Ramona's World, Danny likes Ramona. Ramona's enemy is Susan, whom Ramona thinks is a goody-goody. When Ramona starts 4th grade in Ramona's World, she becomes best friends with a new girl, Daisy Kidd. Ramona thinks liking or not liking her teachers is important, and in 3rd grade, she starts out not liking Ms. Whaley, but ends up liking her. Same with her 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Meacham. Ramona is also very upset when she thinks she has found out that a teacher does not like her since she believes it is their job to like her and she also cares what they think. Something has happened to make her believe almost every teacher she has had did not like her. In Ramona Forever, Ramona gets a baby sister, named Roberta Day Quimby. In Ramona Forever, her cat Picky-Picky dies.
In the 1988 Canadian TV adaptation of the series, Ramona, she is portrayed by Sarah Polley. In the 2010 film adaptation, Ramona and Beezus, she is portrayed by Joey King.[2]
When Ramona started out in the Henry Huggins books, she was 4. She was also this age in Beezus and Ramona. She is 5 years old in Ramona the Pest. In Ramona the Brave, Ramona is 6 years old. In Ramona and Her Mother and Ramona and Her Father, Ramona is 7 years old. In Ramona Quimby, Age 8 and Ramona Forever, Ramona is 8 years old. In a book that is possibly her last, which is Ramona's World, Ramona starts out 9 years old, and turns 10 at the end. As her age increases, Ramona's maturity greatly increases as well. At age ten, she is still very rambunctious and imaginative but is now better able to understand the perspectives of adults and friends and the needs they might have.
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