Henry and Beezus

Beverly Cleary's Henry and Beezus is a warm, funny neighbourhood story for 8 year olds about a boy who REALLY wants a bike.

What happens

Henry Huggins lives on Klickitat Street with his mum, his dad and his dog Ribsy. Show-off Scooter McCarthy rides up and down the road with his hands in his pockets. Henry's parents say maybe next year. Henry wants a bike now.

So he starts a bike fund. The trouble is that nearly every money-making plan goes sideways, and Ribsy is usually involved.

Ribsy pinches the neighbours' barbecue roast and leads half the street on a chase. Henry finds forty-nine boxes of bubble gum dumped in a vacant lot and is the most popular boy at school for about two days. Then the whole class is chewing, the teacher is marching people to the bin and the head is giving a talk about gum (and Ramona, Beezus's little sister, ends up with a lot of it in her hair).

Beezus is the friend who's always there with her red wagon and her baton. She's sensible, a little bit bossy and very loyal. When Scooter says Henry will never get his bike, it's Beezus who sticks up for him with a "So there!"

It's such a comfortable book to read. The first few chapters each work as a little story of their own, which makes it easy to read one at bedtime. Henry is very easy to relate to. He means well, he doesn't think things through and he always ends up wondering why these things keep happening to him!

Some of the details feel old-fashioned. Ribsy eats horse meat from the pet shop, prices are in pennies and cents, and there's the odd line like "Girls!" or a mention of how "the Indians" used wampum. Nothing that needs a warning, but you might get the occasional question.

What to read next

If your reader ends up liking Beezus best, Beezus and Ramona gives her a book of her own. She's nine, her little sister is four, and Ramona is exasperating in every way you can imagine.