Henry Huggins

Henry Huggins. What can I say about Henry Huggins? It is clearly one of the most adorable stories ever and perfect for getting young readers hooked on a series. Beverly Cleary, infamous children's author that she is, introduces Ribsy to the Henry Huggins series in this first book. It is so popular because it's about a regular boy who does regular kid-things; he goes to school (which isn't always fun), goes home, swims at the local YMCA on wednesday afternoons, eats ice cream...and has a dog! Dogs are such lovable characters that readers can easily identify with Henry and Ribsy's adventures.

The version I read is the 50th Anniversary Edition with a special introduction by Beverly Cleary. In all the time I've had this book, not once did I read the introduction until I sat down to write about it. This was the first sentence of Cleary intro: "When I was the age of readers of my books I always skipped the introduction because I was so eager to get at the story." Ha - whoops! Guess I never grew up much past the age of 12! So now I've read the introduction, and I was surprised to read that this was Cleary's first book ever! I am almost embarrassed that I never knew this, being such a fan of Beverly Cleary. Having been inspired by a group of young boys who couldn't find anything interesting to read "for boys like them", Cleary decided to write about "a city mutt" instead of a "noble country dog" like many stories already in existence.

When reading it, I didn't feel like the story was dated at all. Kids today still understand issues of public transportation, being helped by the police, getting in trouble at school or annoyed by bullies, as well as hard work to get what you want. For example, Henry accidentally throws a football into a moving car, and then must catch night crawlers in his neighbor's yard for a penny each. A penny each! (Yikes, this may be one of the only 'dated' elements in the whole story, but I still know some pretty stingy people to whom this would sound reasonable.) I'm just amazed at what a timeless author Cleary has become after debuting her first work, Henry Huggins, in 1949. What an achievement! All her characters are connected - Beezus and Ramona are in this first book, introduced as friends/classmates of Henry's. Through Henry Huggins, Cleary is able to reach an audience of boys; through Ramona and Beezus, Cleary can reach an audience of girls. She's got it all covered!

P.S. - I was just looking for pictures of the book online, and found that there's a Beverly Cleary Statue Garden near Portland where her books supposedly took place. Here's a picture of Henry and Ribsy, all statuesque...