Beverly Cleary, the beloved and possibly immortal children's author, has turned 103.
Beverly Cleary never planned to live past 80. Now she's 103.
You'd be hard pressed to find an American who isn't familiar with quirky Ramona Quimby, her big sister Beezus, their neighbor Henry Huggins, and his scrappy dog Ribsy. Beverly Cleary made her living with her knack for getting into the mind of children, and her stories and characters have been beloved for generations.
If you've ever wondered what became of Beverly Cleary, she's still kicking. In fact, she turned 103 on April 12, 2019, which is impressive considering the fact that she once said she never planned to live past age 80.
In an interview with Today on her 100th birthday, she told Jenna Bush Hager that she didn't live this long "on purpose." But the centenarian's age sure doesn't seem to be stopping her from being incredibly awesome.
Cleary spent her early childhood in a small town in Oregon with no library and didn't learn to read until second grade.
It wasn't until her family moved to Portland that Cleary became a solid reader. Her school librarian suggested that she become a writer, and Cleary's path was set. She wanted to write about kids like the ones she knew in her own neighborhood, and so she created the characters so many of us grew up getting to know.
Cleary says she's always gotten her ideas for characters and stories from her own experiences and the people around her. Even the name of Ramona Quimby came to her when she was thinking of creating a little sister character and heard a neighbor outside call out "Ramona!" to another neighbor.
She says one reason children love Ramona is "because she does not learn to be a better girl."
"I was so annoyed with the books in my childhood," she said in an interview with Reading Rockets," because children always learned to be better children, and in my experience, they didn't. They just grew, and so I started Ramona, and — and she has never reformed. And she — she's really not a naughty child, in spite of the title of Ramona the Pest. Her intentions are good, but she has a lot of imagination, and things sometimes don't turn out the way she had expected."
Cleary said Ramona was modeled after a little girl who lived near her who was "considered rather impossible."
"I have a vivid memory of her coming home from the grocery store," Cleary said. "In those days, children could be sent to the store. And she had a pound of butter, which she had opened, and she was just eating the pound of [chuckling] butter.
And somehow, that little girl became Ramona, although Ramona never ate a pound of butter."
The prolific author has sold 91 million books, making her one of the most successful authors of all time.
Cleary has been decorated with so many literary awards, it would take half an article to name them all. She has sold 91 million copies of her books, which are still staples in children's libraries and elementary classrooms around the world. The fact that children still love to read her books so many decades after they were written is a testament to Cleary's genius.
When Jenna Bush Hager asked Cleary what she was most proud of, she simply answered, "That children love my books."
Indeed, they do. Thank you, Ms. Cleary, for sharing your stories with us for all these years.
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Resurfaced video of French skier's groin incident has people giving the announcer a gold medal
"The boys took a beating on that one."
Downhill skiing is a sport rife with injuries, but not usually this kind.
A good commentator can make all the difference when watching sports, even when an event goes smoothly. But it's when something goes wrong that great announcers rise to the top. There's no better example of a great announcer in a surprise moment than when French skier Yannick Bertrand took a gate to the groin in a 2007 super-G race.
Competitive skiers fly down runs at incredible speeds, often exceeding 60 mph. Hitting something hard at that speed would definitely hurt, but hitting something hard with a particularly sensitive part of your body would be excruciating. So when Bertrand slammed right into a gate family-jewels-first, his high-pitched scream was unsurprising. What was surprising was the perfect commentary that immediately followed.
This is a clip you really just have to see and hear to fully appreciate:
- YouTube youtu.be
It's unclear who the announcer is, even after multiple Google inquiries, which is unfortunate because that gentleman deserves a medal. The commentary gets better with each repeated viewing, with highlights like:
"The gate the groin for Yannick Bertrand, and you could hear it. And if you're a man, you could feel it."
"Oh, the Frenchman. Oh-ho, monsieurrrrrr."
"The boys took a beating on that one."
"That guy needs a hug."
"Those are the moments that change your life if you're a man, I tell you what."
"When you crash through a gate, when you do it at high rate of speed, it's gonna hurt and it's going to leave a mark in most cases. And in this particular case, not the area where you want to leave a mark."
Imagine watching a man take a hit to the privates at 60 mph and having to make impromptu commentary straddling the line between professionalism and acknowledging the universal reality of what just happened. There are certain things you can't say on network television that you might feel compelled to say. There's a visceral element to this scenario that could easily be taken too far in the commentary, and the inherent humor element could be seen as insensitive and offensive if not handled just right.
The announcer nailed it. 10/10. No notes.
The clip frequently resurfaces during the Winter Olympic Games, though the incident didn't happen during an Olympic event. Yannick Bertrand was competing at the FIS World Cup super-G race in Kvitfjell, Norway in 2007, when the unfortunate accident occurred. Bertrand had competed at the Turin Olympics the year before, however, coming in 24th in the downhill and super-G events.
As painful as the gate to the groin clearly as, Bertrand did not appear to suffer any damage that kept him from the sport. In fact, he continued competing in international downhill and super-G races until 2014.
According to a 2018 study, Alpine skiing is a notoriously dangerous sport with a reported injury rate of 36.7 per 100 World Cup athletes per season. Of course, it's the knees and not the coin purse that are the most common casualty of ski racing, which we saw clearly in U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn's harrowing experiences at the 2026 Olympics. Vonn was competing with a torn ACL and ended up being helicoptered off of the mountain after an ugly crash that did additional damage to her legs, requiring multiple surgeries (though what caused the crash was reportedly unrelated to her ACL tear). Still, she says she has no regrets.
As Bertrand's return to the slopes shows, the risk of injury doesn't stop those who live for the thrill of victory, even when the agony of defeat hits them right in the rocks.