By Beverly Cleary
Third grade, a new school, and a family stretched thin, all survived one funny, mortifying, ordinary day at a time by Ramona Quimby.
Ramona is eight now and starting third grade at a brand-new school, riding the bus for the first time and trying hard to be helpful, because things are tight at home. Her dad has gone back to college to become a teacher, which means her mom is working full-time and everyone is a little stretched. Ramona means to be good. She just keeps landing in trouble anyway: she cracks a raw egg on her head thinking it's hard-boiled, she throws up in class in front of everyone, and she becomes convinced her teacher thinks she's a nuisance and a show-off. Through it all runs a family holding together with humor and love, right up to a restaurant dinner that a kind stranger turns into one of the best nights they've had.
This is the book that half the funny, true chapter books on this shelf are descended from, and it has aged barely at all. Ramona is spirited and well-meaning and constantly, gloriously in trouble, and Beverly Cleary takes her small humiliations as seriously as Ramona does, which is exactly why they're so funny and so comforting. The chapters work almost like short stories, easy for a newer reader to take one at a time. Underneath the comedy is something real: money is tight, her dad is stressed and studying, and Ramona is old enough to feel all of it and try to help. A child who is the lively one, the too-much one, the one who never means to cause trouble, will find themselves on every page.