Ramona Quimby Books- Did she have AS?

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I was wondering if anyone here was heavily into Beverly Cleary's Ramona Quimby series growing up and if you think Ramona was an fictional case of undiagnosed AS and ADHD. She was always getting into trouble with both the teachers and other kids without knowing what she did was wrong and why it was wrong. For example, when they line up in kindergarten, she really admires this girl's curly hair and is intrigued by the way the curls bounce. She goes up to her and pulls her hair without realizing that it hurts her and then she gets punished for it without any idea why.

Another example is when Ramona is in second grade, she wants to wear her pajamas to school because she finds them soft and comfortable as opposed to her regular clothes which scratch her skin (this implies she may have had sensory issues).

She also doesn't really have any close friends her age from K-3 except for Howie next door who is a boy and she's forced to play with him because their mothers are best friends.

Yes, I know all kids have their moments and some might attribute it to normal kiddish behavior but it seems that most NT kids know that pulling hair will hurt by the age of 5 and know that wearing pajamas to school doesn't look right in second grade (unless it's an assigned pajama day). Also from my observations, most NT kids from the ages of 5-9 have a "best friend" or at least a "few close friends that they prefer to play with most" that are usually the same gender.

If you were into the Ramona books, I'd like your insights because as undiagnosed Aspie, my favorite fictional books when I was between 8 and 11 were the Ramona books because I identified with her so much when I realized that she got in trouble and didn't know why just like me.

Last edited by AllieKat on 01 May 2011, 2:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I did wonder about Ramona Quimby, and Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish as well.

There is an older book series called Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, and while no one character really seemed to have AS, if you put all the children together then it might as well have been talking about a child with AS.

Here is an interesting summary of what the books address.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Piggle-Wiggle

I've heard of Mrs Piggle Wiggle but never read the books. From the description in the link you sent me, it sounds like those books would be really un-PC today. Crybaby cure? fraidy-cat cure? I wonder if my parents would have sent me to her as I was considered "overly emotional and anxious" as a child as I would have meltdowns aka tantrums over things like not getting the playground I wanted in first grade and I was terrified of a lot things partly due to sensory and anxiety issues.

I do vaguely remember Amelia Bedelia but looking back as an adult, I think she was intended to be a joke while Ramona's character was much more highly developed with a lot of emotions and feelings. I remember when I had that a-ha moment when I was 9 and read her books and thought, "she gets into trouble because everyone treats her unfair! Just like me!"

I wonder if Beverly Cleary had undiagnosed AS and based Ramona on her own childhood? I'm going to do some online research about that one......

I remember when I was ten, my teacher used to read the books to us and I remember the "boing boing" she did in her kindergarten class and she got kicked out. Back then I just thought she was a misbehaved child and couldn't behave but now as an adult I realize she isn't bad, she is just an innocent child who happens to get into trouble. She doesn't mean to make people mad. When our teacher played the shows, I realized I used to watch it all the time when I was six and she wasn't bad at all like the books made her to be.

Funny when you're a child, you think someone is bad when they get yelled at a lot or always get into trouble because that is what happens to bad kids right? Even I thought I was bad when I'd always get into trouble. Same as when I get screamed at. But when I'd get yelled at less, I thought I was good.

I loved the Ramona books when I was a child. I don't know if she was aspie, but I could heavily identify with her. Adults seemed to laugh at her all the time, for things she did or said which seemed quite rational to me.

You're confusing "Asperger's" and "ADHD" with "bratty five-year old."

Also, there's something kind of sad about writing multiple paragraphs explaining why you think a kids' book character has a mental disorder.

I don't see ASD at all. I see typical child.

Yeah, it may be sad but unfortunately, Ramona was the only fictional character whom I identified with when I was in my pre-teen years. The other children's books that I was reading had protagonists that all had lots of friends and none were "misunderstood" as much as Ramona was.

Looking back and analyzing other children's fiction that I read at the same age I was reading the Ramona books include:

Judy Blume Books- her protagonists always had "a best friend" and were also pretty popular with other kids as well as very concerned about "fitting in".

Baby-Sitters Club, by Ann M Martin- a group of 12 and 13 year olds who have a tight knit clique go through the typical middle school issues while also dealing with running a very successful business. When I was in sixth grade and wanted to fit in, I tried "copying" the social behaviors of the girls in this book in middle school and it got me into more trouble. Nearly all the girls in sixth grade were reading the BSC books back then and the girls at my school made fun of me for months for trying to be "Claudia Kishi (the artsy character in this book series).

Betsy Books by Carolyn Haywood- Starts with Betsy at age 6 and in first grade and follows her until about age 10. Betsy fits right in from the get-go and the books are about innocent little adventures with her friends. The Betsy books were published in the 1940s and 1950s around the same time period Ramona The Pest was introduced. It also roughly follows the same age span as the Ramona books but a very different outlook from a child's point of view. Betsy was a little too perfect IMO.

Anyway, one of the reasons I'm analyzing this so much as that I've starting writing a book about an 11 year old female protagonist with AS and the challenges she faces when she starts middle school. It is loosely based on some of my childhood experiences but set in today's times with her having been diagnosed at the age of 7.

In order to do this, I had to go back and look at "realistic fiction about kids in school settings" that I read as a kid and also go to a library and check out some fictional books about tween girls today. (Beacon Street Girls, Madison Finn, etc). Just as it hit me that Ramona was kinda like me when i was 9, it hit me when I was going back and re-reading her books last month that she may have had AS but course, it's all speculation because she is a fictional character and some of it was just "kid behavior" and it might have been just that Ramona had a stronger personality than the other kids in those oh-so sappy sweet books written during this time period.

Last edited by AllieKat on 01 May 2011, 6:16 pm, edited 7 times in total.

I'm not familiar with the books, but full-grown adults still do this to me. It may not be exactly the same, because I think I'm more sensitive to touch than normal people, so they might not be pulling as hard as I perceive them to be. But still. I wish they'd grow out of it.

Just because you can identify with a character doesn't mean that they have Asperger's. I can identify with Sookie Stackhouse, but I don't think she has Asperger's.

I loved the Ramona Quimby books. They were required reading when I was in elementary school. I personally think that Ramona is simply desperate for attention and also to please everybody around her. I don't see her as being autistic. Besides, it's likely that she grows out of all that as she gets older.

Daria would say that, wouldn't she.

I never thought about that....................I'm not sure about Ramona..............but I was just recently thinking about how Amelia Bedelia took everything too literally like someone with AS!

I just finished consulting with a friend of mine who's a 5th grade teacher and she gave me feedback about my writing the book with the 11 year old Aspie protagonist as well another suggestion for a book for me to read. She said the book "Dogs Don't Tell Jokes" by Louis Sachar has a protagonist that better fits an undiagnosed Aspie than Ramona did (given Ramona's young age).

Here's the link; http://www.amazon.com/Dogs-Dont-Jokes-L ... 702&sr=8-1
My friend thinks that the main character, Gary Boone is more AS because at the age of 12, he has no inclination to fit in with his peers nor does have have any concept that he annoys his teachers and parents. He is completely obsessed with telling jokes, studying joke books, and learning about comedians and will tell his jokes to his classmates despite being repeatedly blown off by them. He tells his jokes in class and annoys the heck out of his teachers too. When I was 12, I also did the same thing- I didn't tell jokes or have an obsession with comedians but I annoyed the hell out of my peers and teachers by talking nonstop about my interests without getting their nonverbal cues to chill out and bug off.

My friend is going to get book tomorrow for me to read so I can get better insights into writing for the tween crowd. She said there is definitely still a market for realistic school fiction and if my book gets published, it will do some good in increasing AS awareness.

About Ramona, now I'm thinking she was just a strong willed child with a strong personality and was misunderstood. Maybe if Beverly Cleary had written more books that carried Ramona through sixth grade, we'd get to see if she did "outgrow" those behaviors......

Sheila in Judy Blume's "Otherwise Known as Sheila The Great" had the same fears as me I was her age (swimming and dogs) but she goes through all efforts to hide them from her friends so they don't think she's babyish- definitely a very NON Aspie thing.

She was a teaching device for kids. I think you completely missed the point.

I just recently read all the Ramona books, many of them for the first time since I was grown up when some of them came out. I also read "Ellen Tebbits" also by Beverly Cleary, and and Cleary's two autobiographies. This was because I'd read a couple posts on blogs, etc. saying that Ramona might be autistic.

I haven't been able to make up my mind about her. In some ways, she seemed at least ADHD. She did make social mistakes, but part of it could be attributed to having a strong personality and a vivid imagination. Also there were several examples of her taking things literally. But how often do actual NT kids at young ages misunderstand expressions and idioms the adults use, if they haven't heard them before?

Of course I don't know what Cleary intended, but in the pajamas incident, while Ramona did feel they were more comfortable than some of her other clothes, one of the main reasons she loved them was because they were a rare instance of clothing being bought for her, rather than having been handed down from her older sister Beezus.

As far as not having a best friend and playing mainly with Howie until she was older, I believe it was stated that there weren't any other girls near her age in the neighborhood. Also she was an active kid and enjoyed at least some of the activities that she participated in with Howie. Also, other than Susan she didn't seem to be an actual outcast in her class or to be picked on any more than any other kid. She did chase that one boy and the other boys told him to run, but it sounded as if that ended up being just a game that Ramona probably did to get attention.

Also, the character "Ellen Tebbits" by the same author didn't have a best friend until about 3rd or 4th grade, and she didn't seem to be autistic. However, she had the same situation as Ramona--no girls her age living nearby to play with, until someone moved in.

Furthermore, Cleary herself didn't have an actual best friend until she was about 9 or so, because of not having many kids, especially girls, her age in the neighborhood (plus her family moved a few times.) Cleary also had a strong personality and imagination, and didn't always get along with her teachers, though she wasn't in trouble all the time like Ramona. I don't think she based Ramona on herself, but there were some parallels. She mentioned a couple times that she took some expressions used by the adults literally. And Cleary didn't come off as autistic at all--she seemed to do all right socially, she didn't seem to have any more sensory issues than other kids, she mentioned recognizing various facial expressions, etc.

I wonder if the emphasis on best friends and playing with kids of the same sex has come in the last 60 or so years. I'm not saying no one had best friends before that, but i wonder if maybe people didn't make as big a thing of playing only with kids of the same sex, especially if all you had in the neighborhood were kids of the opposite sex. Parents might not have been thrilled by it, but they'd probably rather their kids had someone to play with. I actually think there's more separation between what boys and girls are supposed to be like and play with now, with all the toys for girls being pink and all the emphasis on princesses and other girly things for girls.

Also I think books about a character like Ramona, a strong, imaginative kid, are somehow supposed to appeal to kids partly because even NT kids have periods where they feel misunderstood, or like the adults don't like them or their parents and teachers don't understand them, or that they feel like they're always in trouble or don't understand why they should do things a certain way. Even NT kids have those moments, and these kind of books appeal to them because they can identify with the mishaps they get into, even though their mishaps aren't as frequent.

Another thing about Ramona was that she was a younger sister who felt like her older sister got all the attention from her parents and got stuff she wanted (for instance, new clothes and toys were often bought for Beezus and handed down to Ramona because the family wasn't that well off). She wasn't a kid who liked to be ignored, so at least some things were to get attention or at least so that she wasn't ignored.

I don't think Cleary thought (or thinks, I believe she's still alive) that a kid being a little different or rebellious or strong-willed was necessarily a bad thing as long as they didn't get in real trouble.