Ramona The Pest

Title: Ramona the Pest

Author: Judy Blume

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Summary: Ramona tells her sister, Beezus, that she isn’t a pest. Beezus wasn’t her real name. Her real name was Beatrice, and she thought Ramona was a pest. Mary Jane arrived and asked if she could walk to school with Ramona and Beatrice, but Ramona refused, so Beatrice and Mary Jane walked to school and Mrs. Quimby took Ramona. Her mother’s friend, Mrs. Kemp approached them with her son, Howie, and his little sister, Willa Jean, who was riding in a stroller. They finally left the house and arrived at school. Ramona’s teacher’s name was Miss Binney. She was young and pretty and it was rumored that she had never taught at school before. Miss Binney told Ramona that she was going to give her a present. Ramona sat down and waited with her classmates. She knew Davy and Susan. Ramona admired Susan’s curly hair. She told Davy she was getting a present and Davy turned and told the boy next to him. Soon enough, the whole class knew about Ramona getting a present. The day went on and Ramona hadn’t gotten her present, but she continued to wait patiently. Miss Binney complemented her when she raised her hand to speak. Miss Binney read the class a book, and when it was finished, she told her class that if they walked quietly to the playground, she would teach them a game called Gray Duck. Ramona didn’t move. She told Miss Binney why she wasn’t moving, and she was disappointed when there was a miscommunication. Miss Binney told Ramona to “sit down for the present” but Ramona didn’t understand that that meant sit down for now. She was upset but she recovered quickly and played Gray Duck. Ramona made fun of Howie, a boy in her class, and he got upset. Ramona got picked and had to run around the circle and she took hold of one of the curls from Susan’s head. Susan screamed and Ramona let go. When Susan said “ow,” Ramona called her a baby. Miss Binney told Ramona to go sit on the bench while the class played the game and Ramona refused. Miss Binney told her again and she walked away. When the game was over, Ramona followed the class inside. It was rest time, which was another disappointment to Ramona. To prove that she was a good girl, Ramona went on her mat and lied down, but when she snored, the class giggled. When Howie told on Ramona for starting the snoring, Ramona called him a tattletale. After rest time, the rest of the morning went quickly. When Mrs. Quimby came, she told Ramona that that was no way to act on her first day of school. When asked about her opinion on kindergarten, Ramona said it wasn’t as good as she thought it would be but she said maybe it would be better when they had “show and tell.” Ramona couldn’t wait for Show and Tell, so she asked Beezus what she was bringing, but she said “Nothing.” Ramona said she was going to take her doll, Chevrolet. At school, Ramona was nervous that Miss Binney wouldn’t like her because of what had happened on the first day. Seeming to forget about it, Miss Binney greeted Ramona with a smile and kindly asked the class if they had brought anything in to share. Ramona remembered to raise her hand and she began to share it with the class. When she said she named her doll Chevrolet, the class began to laugh but Miss Binney ignored it and made them repeat after her. The whole way home, Ramona and Howie were bickering because Miss Binney gave Howie a ribbon to put on the show and tell rabbit that he brought in, but since Ramona gave that to him to share, she thought it was hers. The mother’s decided it would be best to cut it in half. When they got to Ramona’s, the kids played outside. While they were outside, they agreed that if Howie could fix Ramona’s tricycle to make it only have two wheels, then she could have the ribbon. Maybe Howie wasn’t so bad after all. Davy was the crossing guard at school, and Ramona really liked him. One morning, she tried to kiss him and she chased him round the playground. This happened every morning. The first in seat assignment at school was to draw a picture of your house. She decided to draw big black swirls coming out of the windows in her home, because she was so intrigued by the curls on Susan’s head. Ramona began to tell the class about her pictures and how she did not scribble on it. The next assignment was harder-Ramona had to print her name. SHE carefully wrote each letter out. After writing their names, Ramona realized that Miss Binney was the best teacher ever. She really did like her. Henry and Ramona’s mother’s decided it was time that the kids walk to school by themselves, so they told them the rules and let them go. When they got to school, something was wrong. None of the kids were outside or lining up. There was a substitute teacher. Ramona did not like what she saw. She wasn’t going into the classroom with a strange teacher, so she followed the first graders and then hid in between trash cans. Ramona must have dozed off, and when she woke up, her class was outside for recess. A boy came over and Ramona told him to go away, and soon enough, Henry came over. Ramona didn’t want any attention drawn to her. Next thing she knew, Beezus was there, and so was the yard teacher. The yard teacher told Beezus to take her to Miss Mullen, the principal. She understood that going into a classroom with a new teacher would be difficult, so there were no consequences. Miss Mullen took Ramona to her class and introduced her to the substitute, Mrs. Wilcox. She was told Ramona was just running a little late that day, and nothing was mentioned about what had happened prior. One rainy day, Mrs. Quimby wanted Ramona to wear Howie’s old rain boots, but Ramona erfused because they were boy boots and they weren’t shiny at the top. Ramona’s mother told her she could either stay home from school or wear the boots, and since she loved kindergarten so much, she put the boots on. Before going into the classroom, Ramona had picked up a pink worm, wiggling still. She had it around her finger and it looked like she was wearing a ring. It brought attention to her. Since Ramona loved Miss Binney so much, she listened to anything she told her to do, so when Miss Binney told her she should put it back on the playground, Ramona listened. The next day, Mrs. Quimby took Ramona shopping for new shoes. She left the store with red, girl’s boots and she was thrilled. A few days later, Ramona was able to wear her new boots because it was raining outside. Every chance she got, Ramona went straight to the mud to test her new boots out. Soon enough, like Henry told her, her feet got stuck in the mud. Miss Binney saw Ramona and called Henry over for help. He came over and grasped Ramona around the waste and picked her up, but he lifted her right out of her boots! She was not happy. Miss Binney told her that nobody would take them and they would get them later on in the day. Henry was nice enough to get the boots for her. Suddenly, Ramona saw that pink worm again and called out to Henry telling him she was going to marry him. At school one day, Ramona knew it wasn’t far from Halloween because her class was cutting out jack-o’-lanterns from orange paper and putting them on the windows for light to shine through. Ramona liked dressing up, and just Halloween in general. This year, Ramona wanted to be the “baddest witch.” She went home and saw two paper bags on her bad, both for her costume. When she looked inside one of the bags, it was full of material to make a costume. The other one was a mask, a very scary mask. Even Ramona wasn’t too fond of looking at it. When she put it on, she felt brave and went to show her father, Beezus and her mother. Finally the day of the Halloween parade at school came and Ramona was so excited! Howie was dressed as a black cat, but not by choice. He wanted to be a pirate, but his mother was too busy taking care of his sister. The tail on his costume was busted and he was not having fun. As all of the kids were running, Ramona captured Davy and kissed him through her mask. He was disgusted, but she ran away and was satisfied. As time went on, there were so many witches dressed up and nobody knew who Ramona was. She felt lost in her costume and was worried that not even her mother would figure out which one she was. Ramona took her mask off. She put it back on later in the parade, and held up a piece of paper with her name on it, so now people knew who she was. Overall, the Halloween parade went well. Days later, the morning had started off well. Ramona lost a tooth and she was going to walk to school by herself because Howie was home sick with a cold. Mrs. Quimby left Ramona home by herself for a few minutes to go somewhere with Beezus, and told Ramona to leave at quarter past eight. She left when the big hand was on the five and realized something was wrong. She was walking to school and didn’t see anyone else. When she got there, after running, Susan opened the door for her and said “you’re late.” Ramona’s tooth fell out in school; it was her first tooth. Throughout the day, Ramona continued to “boing” Susan’s curls. She was asked to stop twice by Miss Binney and she blatantly told Miss Binney that she couldn’t stop. Miss Binney told her that if she kept pulling Susan’s hair, she would need to stay at home until she learned. Ramona sat outside on the bench for the rest of the day. She was upset because she loved going to kindergarten, but Susan called her a pest and Ramona couldn’t resent a word more than that one. Ramona wouldn’t tell her mother what had happened when she got home. All she said was that Miss Binney told her to stay home and that she didn’t like her anymore. Mrs. Quimby made Ramona go to school the next day, but this time, she asked to talk to Mrs. Binney. Ramona stared at the floor. Miss Binney told Mrs. Quimby that when Ramona was ready to go back to school, she was more than welcome to come back. Ramona was not ready. Mrs. and Mr. Quimby talked that night, and Ramona told them what had happened at school the day before. All of the frustration caused Ramona to have a fit that night and the next morning, Howie stopped to get her for school but she did not want to go so he went on without her. Ramona insisted that she wasn’t going back to kindergarten until Miss Binney forgets about her, so when she does go back, she is someone new. People who walked past Ramona’s house were yelling “dropout!” The next morning, Ramona wasn’t hungry to eat her lunch. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. It was Howie and he had a letter that said “RAMONA” printed on the envelope. It was Ramona’s tooth! Miss Binney had still had her tooth from the last day she was in school. In the letter, it said that Miss Binney misses Ramona and wanted her to come back to school. Ramona decided to go back to school the next day…even if it was Saturday. She invited Howie to stay for lunch-it wasn’t tuna!

Characters; Ramona, Beatrice, Miss Binney, Mrs. Quimby, Susan, Davy, Howie, Willa Jean, Mary Jane

Plot: Ramona was trying her hardest to prove to everyone that she isn’t a pest, but everything she does seems to annoy other people and she gets frustrated and tried to prove everyone wrong by doing things that she doesn’t really want to do.

Theme: Ramona is a pest!

Setting: Ramona’s house, school

Opinion: I liked reading this book. It was an easy read, to me, and I think kids would enjoy it. It’s a real life situation where siblings fight and a child doesn’t want to go to school. I would definitely recommend this to teachers because it was a good discussion book as well. It had serious parts, but it also had parts that were funny which I think is really good in a novel.