Critical Reception
Children's Literature expert Anita Silvey calls Cleary's early books "pure, nostalgic Americana". Twentieth-Century Children's Writers says that Cleary has developed a "community of individual children with unique attributes and interests". In a starred review for "books of remarkable merit", Kirkus Reviews said of Ellen Tebbits, "It seems obvious from this entrancing successor to Henry Huggins that the author is as well acquainted with the whisperings, weeps and whoops of third grade distaff side..." Cleary's humor was noted by the Saturday Review, which said "Through all Ellen's joys and sorrows there runs a thread of humor that makes the reader chuckle even when he is sympathizing with her."
Read more about this topic: Ellen Tebbits
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