Beezus and Ramona

This Classic is a part of our Core A curriculum with Sonlight.

I'm honestly not sure what I think about this book. It is an honest book told from the view of Beezus in third person, which is good to help process what she is thinking and feeling. On the other side I can totally understand see why Ramona is such a nuisance at four years old; she gets what she wants by annoying those around her or doing defiant things. This is good for talking about what is done well and what is poor character and to compare with what God teaches us in the Bible. 

I did like the creativity and imagination shown in some of the chapters. The chapter talking about imagination was really good at teaching how we each have imagination in different ways and in a home with ten children understanding that we will not all be creatively the same is extremely important.

I was doing OK with it until the end when Beezus was told she didn't have to love her sister all the time, which flies in the faith of Biblical teaching and makes love a feeling instead of how we treat others. While I do understand what Cleary was getting at with this discussion in the book, it was really hard to read to my children and we had to stop after almost ever sentence to talk about what was being said. You can say I'm mincing words and that's fine, but to tell a child they shouldn't love their sister all the time is destructive and hurtful. We know that we're not going to like what others do and because we're sinful we won't love people all the time, but God says to love the way He does and that is what we are to teach.

Language wise it is written well for reading out loud and for children to understand. Because of when it was written it has some of the language was "dated" but that's part of the fun of reading classics.

Because of the ending I can only give this book 3 stars.

Reading Challenges:

I am using this one for the Back to the Classics Challenge though not sure if it will be my 20th Century Classic or Classic by a Woman Author