When I was a kid, I read all of Beverly Cleary's books because ... well, maybe because the pictures were cool or they were somewhat intereting, I don't know. At the time I thought the stories a bit bland and ordinary.
Later, all grown up as a college student and with some time to kill in the library, I found myself in the children's section and on a whim, pulled out one of the Cleary books and started to read. They almost had to kick me out of the library because I was laughing loud enough to disturb others, and couldn't stop.
Cleary was a superb writer. Her prose was exquisitely lean, concise, and visual. She never condescended to her readers and always respected the dignity of her characters. As a kid, reading about kid things, to me at the time it seemed almost like straight reporting, and not particularly comical. Later, her clean and understated writing style and objective way of chronicling the antics of kids made for very, very funny reading from an adult perspective.