Although the town had no library, her mother presided over a collection of books sent out at intervals from the State Library in Eugene. After her family moved to Portland when she was six, Cleary had her first real contact with a public library, though she remembers not being able to find exactly what she wanted--humorous books about ordinary children similar to herself and the boys and girls in her own neighborhood.
Cleary was educated at the University of California at Berkeley, graduating in 1938. Her interest in children's books led her, quite naturally, into children's library work, and she took a second B.A., in librarianship, at the University of Washington in 1939. As a children's librarian in Yakima, Washington, she had many experiences with children who wanted to read books about children like themselves in situations they could understand, furthering her ambition to become a writer herself.
In 1940 she married Clarence T. Cleary, and they moved to California. During World War II, she served as post librarian at the Oakland Army Hospital. It was not until 1950 and a move to a new house in Berkeley that she sat down and began the story of a boy, a dog, and a bus which was to become Henry Huggins.
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