Homeschool Field Trip: A Stroll Down Klickitat Street (Red Boots Optional) in Portland, Ore.

Everyone who reads Ramona the Pest imagines what it would be like to grow up on Klickitat Street. Discover the answer for yourself with this Portland homeschool field trip adventure.

Henry Huggins is one of Beverly Cleary’s beloved characters featured at the Beverly Cleary sculpture garden in Grant Park. PHOTO: Travel Portland

THE BOOK: Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary

THE DESTINATION: Portland, Ore.

Everyone who reads Ramona the Pest imagines what it would be like to grow up on Klickitat Street: walking to school in your brand-new sandals, digging up worms in the park to earn money for your first bicycle, and learning how to ride that bike on the sidewalks with a curious dog barking behind you. Ramona’s neighborhood is pure, old-fashioned community, and while you can’t turn back the clock to a simpler time, you can visit the place that inspired it.

Portland is Ramona’s — and Henry’s, and Ellen Tebbits’s — home turf, and Beverly Cleary grew up in a bungalow on 37th Street in northeast Portland, a stone’s throw from the more euphonious Klickitat Street. If you’re interested, there are several Beverly Cleary walking tours that explore Portland through the lens of her classic children’s books — you can plot your route using the guidebook Walking with Ramona: Exploring Beverly Cleary's Portland. Snap a photo beside the Klickitat Street and Tilamook Street street signs. Wander past Cleary’s former elementary school, now named for her, and you can almost imagine you see Yard Ape playing catch with Ramona’s eraser outside. Amble along the sidewalks toward Grant Park — the park that inspired Henry Huggins’ great nightcrawler digging business in the Henry books. You’ll spy three familiar faces: a boy, his dog best friend, and a little girl splashing in a puddle for all she’s worth. These statues — tributes to Henry Huggins, Ribsy, and Ramona Quimby, respectively— are part of the park’s Beverly Cleary sculpture garden, a charming spot with plenty of room for running and playing.

Stroll four blocks to Hollywood Library, where you’ll find a fabulous marble, limestone, and travertine map of “Beverly Cleary’s Neighborhood” on the eastern wall. The 12.5-foot-high map features Henry’s paper route, the gas station that inspired Al’s Thrifty Service Station, and the library where Ramona checks out her beloved Scoopy book. It’s a fun look at the world of Cleary’s imagination inspired by her real-life neighborhood.

It’s also worth taking the 30-minute drive to another library, Gresham Library, on Miller Avenue, a treasure trove for Cleary fans. The two Ramona statues waiting to greet you are twin reminders of why we love Cleary’s most iconic character so much: one sunny, merry Ramona, and another cross, pouting Ramona, capturing the real-kid spirit of Beezus’s little sister. As you’d expect, the library has a great Cleary collection, and you can settle into one of the reading nooks to read a chapter of your favorite together.

Real Cleary fans will want to take the 40-minute road trip to Yamhill, the eponymous town of Cleary’s autobiography, where she lived in “the first fine house in Yamhill, with the second bathtub in Yamhill County.” This little town is the setting of Emily’s Runaway Imagination, and you can see the former Yamhill Bank, where Cleary’s mom started the lending library that inspired the one in Emily’s story. The streets of this town are where Cleary used to play Brick Factory, a game that Ramona and Howie play together on Klickitat Street. The apple tree in Cleary’s old front yard inspired Ramona’s apple eating binge, when she insists to Beezus — who has to agree — that the first bite always tastes the best. 

PLANNING YOUR TRIP

Book your stay at the Kennedy School, a schoolhouse-turned-hotel with rooms that still have their original chalkboards and cloakrooms. Guests get free admission to the pool and on-site movie theater.

The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is always worth a visit — past exhibits have focused on Star Wars costumes, Pompeii, and Legos.

Powell’s City of Books is the world’s largest new and used bookstore and home to approximately one million books. How can any Beverly Cleary fan resist that?

Ramona might not have actually climbed any volcanoes, but a hike to the playground on top of (extinct) volcano Mount Tabor seems totally in the Ramona spirit.

This was originally published in the 2018 issue of HSL. We double-checked our links for accuracy before posting online, but always do your own research before heading off on a travel adventure!

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