Ramona Quimby Age 8

“Thump, thump, thump against the back of Ramona’s seat.”

Beverly Cleary uses onomatopoeia—where a word sounds like what it means—to convey the annoying sound Danny makes on the bus seat. The use of sensory language emphasizes the sound as well as how Ramona can also feel the thuds against her back. This moment captures how Ramona has matured. A younger Ramona would explode in anger, but eight-year-old Ramona holds her temper, insistent on not letting the bully ruin her first day of school.

“Ramona pretended she was riding a stagecoach pursued by robbers.”

Though Ramona has matured in her emotional intelligence, she still retains her imaginative sense of adventure and creativity. Envisioning her bus ride as a wild west romp illustrates that Ramona still has a childlike sense of wonder and playfulness.

“[I]n the distance, the snow-capped peak of Mount Hood looking like a giant licked ice-cream cone.”

Cleary uses a simile, where something is compared to something else using “like” or “as,” to describe the view of Mount Hood from Ramona’s classroom—in this case comparing it to “a giant licked ice-cream cone.” This quote establishes the setting for the novel. All the books in the Ramona series take place in Portland, Oregon, in a fictional neighborhood on Klickitat Street.