Beverly Cleary solves all problems

Amelia has not been happy with her siblings lately. Des is "ANNOYING" and Cady "does nothing but BE MEAN to me" and Finn "RUINS all my stuff". She's been feeling quite put upon and I can sympathize. I'm the oldest and I know how it feels to have pesky siblings who trash every thing and activity that you have going on in your life. She has been especially hard on Cady. She yells at her, teases her, punishes her if Des shows favoritism. I often intervene. I know some parents don't and maybe it works well for their families but just because there is no violence involved doesn't mean that the behavior isn't damaging.

Then one day Cady turned up at bedtime with Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary. I've never read chapter books with Cady and we started off cautiously. If there is one criticism I have of Mrs. Cleary it's that her chapters are insanely long. So we started off reading a few pages a night. When we were midway through chapter two Amelia asked if she could listen. It was great. We would laugh and shake our heads at how naughty, yet creative, Ramona could be. Amelia would absolutely howl with laughter at times. There were some passages that explored Beezus' feelings about Ramona. How hard it was to have a little sister and how even when Ramona didn't get her way, she still seemed to get her way. I saw Amelia nod in agreement at one point. The last chapter involves the girls' mother and aunt recounting how they didn't get along when they were younger but were now great friends as grownups. We finished the book and talked about our favorite parts and how good we thought it was and then Amelia said "Come on Cady, let's go to bed and you can sleep with me tonight." We looked in on them and they were cuddled together.