Isabelle and I are going through the entire Ramona Quimby series!I actually remember reading (or hearing) this book as a child - I think in first grade - because I have a distinct memory of the "dawnzer" that "gives a lee light". :)
Ramona the Pest was especially fun because in this book, Ramona is in kindergarten, and Isabelle just finished kindergarten. Since Isabelle is my older child, I really didn't know what to expect when she started kindergarten, and I spent a lot of time worrying and wondering about whether or not her behavior and skill level in various areas was "normal". For me, I struggled with watching Isabelle struggle with her behavior - she was an angel in school, but a bear at home! This book - though fiction - highlights how difficult it is for young children to conform to expectations of behavior, and even though it's not a parenting book, it really helped me to better understand Isabelle and more easily forgive her less-than-ideal behavior.
Isabelle, who is in first grade now, likes this book because when her teacher read it aloud in class, she had the class "crank back their minds" - complete with whirring sound effects and a hand gesture cranking their minds backwards - to think about what kindergarten was like for them. Clearly, Isabelle is able to identify with Ramona, and of course, being able to identify with the characters in a book always makes for good reading!
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