“Henry Huggins was in the third grade. His hair looked like a scrubbing brush and most of his grown-up front teeth were in. He lived with his mother and father in a square white house on Klickitat Street. Except for having his tonsils out when he was six and breaking his arm falling out of a cherry tree when he was seven, nothing much happened to Henry."
On January 2, 1949, Beverly Cleary wrote these memorable words—the first paragraph of her first book Henry Huggins—at the old kitchen table stored in the back bedroom in her home in Berkeley, and the rest is history. Her peerless ability to write authentically from the perspective of children, encapsulating all of their momentous joys, fears and foibles in print, is why her books have resonated so profoundly with children, and have launched many an avid reader.
What I love about Henry is that he’s funny and honest, and is the kind of friend any kid would want to have. This book was what started it all for Beverly Cleary. She went on to write a total of five books about Henry and his chums on Klickitat Street, which are, in my opinion, requisite childhood reading. Henry Huggins would make an entertaining read-aloud as well.
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Published by Harper Collins.
