But in the way that it turned my interest in point of view into a total fascination.Įven though I was probably ten at the time, I started to become aware that there are two sides to every story (at least!). Not like poof! I now understood or wanted to study all about dogs. Being transported inside Ribsy’s fur opened up my mind to seeing my own world, my own everyday situations, in a new way. Reading RIBSY, a realistic and believable story that could be the story of any dog anywhere, was for me more magical than reading a fantasy. All this meant the family was going someplace, and this time Ribsy did not intend to be left behind (RIBSY by Beverly Cleary, pp. The Hugginses had not lingered at the breakfast table. Nosy the cat had been fed and hurriedly shoved outdoors.

Henry had dumped half a can of Wolfie’s Dog Food on Ribsy’s dish without stopping to scratch him behind the ears.

He had also sensed an air of hurry that morning. Huggins tapping around in high heels, a sure sign that she was about to leave the house. Ribsy knew the Hugginses were getting ready to go someplace, because he could hear Mrs. He interacts with them, loves them, depends on them. A real dog, who lives in the real world with humans. I knew he did bad things sometimes.īut I never really got life from his perspective. I spent every day running around with my dog and chasing him out of the neighbors’ yard and stowing anything I didn’t want him to chew high up out of his reach. Sure, in real life I had seen my share of farm animals and spiders and swans and crickets and even mice, but I lived with a dog. Basically, Ribsy was a lovable sidekick.īut when I cracked that book open, I was mesmerized. Ribsy was everybody’s dog – a plain, ordinary dog with no special talents. I already knew Ribsy from Beverly Cleary’s other books about Henry Huggins, Beezus, and Ramona (BTW, I loved books told from kids’ POVs, too).

I could’ve lived on a steady diet of animal fantasies forever. Being inside the skin of a pig, the mind of a spider, or the feathers of a swan – even ones with fantastical lives – opened up my world. And in their own way, each of those heroes ultimately triumphs.īut what I remember as most dazzling, the most magical quality of those books, was my experience of seeing life from a perspective completely different from my own. They struggle with huge obstacles, usually because they are underdogs in a human world. Those animals achieve extraordinary feats, like playing musical instruments, or learning to read and write, or riding toy motorcycles. In my favorite books, the animals were the stars.ĬHARLOTTE’S WEB, THE TRUMPET OF THE SWAN, THE CRICKET IN TIMES SQUARE, and RALPH S. And not books where the kid is the main character and the animal is the sidekick. When I learned to read, like many kids I devoured animal books.

Ribsy book