A review by surlaroute
The Art of Ramona Quimby: Sixty-Five Years of Illustrations from Beverly Cleary's Beloved Books by Anna Katz

4.0

A little part of me wasn't sure whether to count this toward my reading challenge (ie log it at all), because a good half of the text here is excerpts from the Ramona books (another book earlier in the year - the collected work of Jim Morrison - I didn't log for similar reasons, 'cos I'd read a lot of it in its original form) but what original text is here is at turns insightful and fascinating and occasionally made me cry as much as those perfectly chosen excerpts (which in themselves form a perfect and much appreciated overview of the whole Ramona saga). Of course the main point of the book, though, isn't the text but the art, and it's just wonderful to have some of these illustrations (especially the Rogers ones, she's my fave) in such a superior quality to how they appear in my already worn paperbacks (I only got the full collection last year and read them for the first time). It's just a wonderful idea for a project, executed beautifully, and of course given the timing quite a perfect tribute to Beverly Cleary too.