Anyone who is the youngest child in the family should have no problem relating to this book. Ramona Quimby is now seven and a half years old and feels as though her nice comfortable world is being rocked slightly. Her father, who after months of unemployment, finally finds a job at the check out counter at a Shop Rite grocery store. Despite her father now bringing in an income, Ramona's mother has decided to remain at work because she enjoys her job and they have fallen behind on bills as a result of her father's previous unemployment.

This is hard on Ramona for a number of reasons. First, both her her parents are stressed out from their jobs and come home tired and sometimes a bit impatient with one another. One incident had her mother throwing a dinner together in the Crock Pot in the morning, and when the family arrived home that evening, they realized that nobody remembered to turn on the Crock Pot. This resulted in the family scrambling to cook a dinner quickly and tensions between Ramona's parents were high. This, coupled with the family's financial struggles, caused Mr. and Mrs. Quimby to have disagreements more often, which worried Ramona and her sister Beezus.

A second worry of Ramona's was the fact that she struggled for her mother's attention moreso than before. Before her mother worked, she seemed to be there for her daughter more. Now, instead of coming home from school and being greeted by her mother, Ramona has to go to her friend Howie's house after school and be taken care of by his grandmother. Mrs. Quimby seems to be closer to Beezus and this worries Ramona. Ramona starts doing silly things, like hop like a bunny to get her mom's attention. She also daydreams about pretending to be sick at school so her mother would have to pick her up and they could spend the whole day together. However, all of her attempts are unsuccessful and this results in Ramona trying to take drastic measures to get her mom's attention. She decides to run away!

I love Beverly Cleary as an author and feel as though she portrays a struggling suburban family very accurately. The Quimbys aren't perfect but instead very realistic, suffering from typical everyday struggles that most families go through. They get stressed out from work, they get tired and sometimes argue, but their love for one another should be obvious and apparent to all readers. The old-fashioned tone of her books are very comforting to me, bringing me back to an era that I remember vividly. I can hardly wait to re-read more Ramona books!

I had fun reading this book. It is a good book. I enjoyed reading it because, it was a sad story but then it got better at the end because she got what she wanted. I would rate this book a 5. I had a great time reading this book.