One of my favorite book series as a child , still has a special place in my heart , are the "Ramona" book series, written by Beverly Cleary. Interestingly enough, this children's littature series hasn't been really made into much media like you see with others. It did have a movie in 2010. There is something else , there is one television series.
"Ramona" , the TV series, comes to us from Canada and aired on their CBC Network and aired in the United States on PBS starting 1988 (I love our timing) and ran for 10 episodes. The series content comes from "Ramona Quimby, Age 8" , which i talk more about later. This series ,unlike, the books has kind of fallen in obscurity and I am not sure how well it did.
A couple things before I dip into the series (yeah he's taking forever) 1) I will not be doing on comparrisons to the book, for each episode instead i will talk about the episode a little. After those I will then make any marks and allusions to the series. 2) I will be looking at all 10 episodes, but to keep it short some will be just talking about a few episodes.
Episode 1
I do have to say this show does look to capture the books well and especially the book this series is based off the most (Ramona Quimby , Age 8.) This episode is based off the hard--boiled egg chapter. In this episode Ramona asks her mother for a hard boiled egg ,even though she doesn't like them, because it is a new fad all the kids in her class are doing. (Interesting) Also Ramona is wearing red shoes that squeak. So anyway, at lunch the other fad with the hard-boiled eggs is to whack them on your head and Ramona finds out that hers wasn't very cooked. She of course feels embarrsed and awful. (it's her yoke to bear) She thinks her teacher thinks she's annoying after mis-over hearing her. But they talk it out out and all resolved out.
Embrace your inner frying pan.
The book cover seems just mildly annoyed
more after the jump
Episode 2
The Qumiby parents are making something that they don't want the kids to know they are making for dinner. (If this was a different series, I would think they were trying to kill them) Hence this episode being called Mystery Meal. The kids start questioning it and their mother eventually tells them that it's tongue, and when they find out exactly what that means and find it gross. Ramona asks can they make something themselves which Beezus doesn't want her to do , but their father says that's a great idea they can do it the next day , so he and mother can complain. (that sounds like a bad plan) They try to pretend they forgot but that doesn't work. They made corn bread and yogurt chicken (yep.) . Apparently the meal went over well better than yogurt chicken.
Fancy!
Episode 3
The car is broken, and Ramona doesn't feel well (she knows how the car feels) but she would rather go to school anyway. Eventually during the arc of the larva in the blue oatmeal , Ramona barfs (yes we used that word) in class and goes the nurse. Her mother takes her home in a taxi , later she feels awful about throwing up in class (less technical term). Later on Ramona does her book report , that was more a random plot that I didn't know we had.
Am I dead? No honey , unless I am too!
Episode 6
I'm skipping a few episodes because this post would be long , so here we are. I mostly skipped to 6 because it's midway between the series. Ramona gets new Pajamas and she falls in love with them. They are the first new ones for her, instead of hand-me-downs. The next day she decides to wear them under her clothes to school. This may have not been a good idea since Ramona starts feeling over heated. The teacher suggests she go to the nurse because she's not looking well , but she checks out as alright, later she tells her teacher that she's wearing her PJ's under her clothes. Anyway she gets to change out of them and oops, leaves them at school. (oops) She prays to God so that no one will find out. The teacher calls and Ramona thinks she called to say that Ramona wore here PJs to school and then left them there, but the teacher kept her promise not tell and oops. Then she decides to run away after she gets mad at her sister. (that escalated quickly) Her mom decides to help her but she changes her mind after her mother made the suitcase to heavy. (awww) The teacher called because Ramona's been twitching her nose a lot and the reason is because she's being a rabbit.
Ok hurry up! We have renters ready for your room!
Episode 7
Easier to say that Ramona has a bad day , that's also the title "Ramona's Bad Day" the day seems to start well minus her lunch falling out of her lunchbox. She messes up her spelling test, her lunch was made fun of, and she has to go the Kemps' that afternoon. (Howie Kemp is her friend but his sister annoys them and the grandmother makes her play with the sister) Howie's uncle Holbart shows up and sings a song that annoys her. She gets blue dye spilled on her because she was trying to turn the water in the sink blue. The parents fight because of the crock pot wasn't plugged in. Also this episode gives us the darkest Ramona dream sequence ever. The parents seem to have gotten over it.
Caught Blue Handed
Episode 8
Hmm hair. Beezus doesn't want her mom to cut her hair she wants someone else to do it. So Beezus eventually suggests that they go to a beauty school to cut her hair instead since it would be cheaper. (what could go wrong?) Ramona goes with her mom and sister because there's no one around to watch her at home. Ramona gets a free hair cut as well. Ramona's goes well ,but I Beezus doesn't like hers. Their aunt Beatrice comes over to help fix the hair. So that works.
It takes a team
I'm stopping there with the episodes don't want to make this really long .
This series actually kind of got lost which kind of a shame really, but luckily some people recorded it in the past so it can be watched now. As stated above , I am a fan of the Ramona book so does this series fit from what I read? Yeah, it closely follows the books but with some twists to it , and we get imagination scenes from Ramona visualized. Unlike the 2010 movie, they seemed to follow 1 book and stay with it. I say the books are a slice of life genre book series so it being a TV series it works because there's the moments that happen that make a good episode from the chapters than can both be loosely connected but still separate. Which is one reason why I didn't think the movie works, because it's hard to make a slice of life series into a movie. "Rugrats" for example for their movie to work they had to go big and make a big plot, that's the only way I think a Ramona movie could work. Back to the series, It is a good warm series that was enjoyable to watch.
This series stars Sarah Polley as Ramona who has gone on to bigger things in her career. It was made in Canada but not which part, the series doesn't say Canada or America they keep it neutral but you can hear it in how the actors talk though. The books took place in Oregon.
Now the book comparison : Again, I say it does fit with the book's content, the actors do kind of look like how I'd imagine them to look. Again I liked how it did a good job at showing Ramona's imagination. If the series felt over at times overly dramatic it's because the books made things adults might see as small ,big because children would see them as big. It's fairly a good adaptation to the books or in the case, the one book.
That's our look back tune in next time when we wonder why Junie B Jones never had a TV series .
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