In Beezus and Ramona, Beezus, who is nine at the time, experiences real angst over the fact she sometimes does not love Ramona. She assumes this makes her a horrible sister, but, fortunately, Aunt Bea is there to clear that up and reassure her that just because there are times when she doesn't love Ramona, it doesn't make her a bad sister because siblings just fight and get on each other's nerves sometimes.
Every negative thing Ramona goes through in Ramona the Pest since it's shown from her perspective.
When the class goes outside to play a game called Gray Duck, Ramona pulls Susan's hair and means it as a joke, but it hurts her. This prompts Miss Binney to assume Ramona was being malicious and put her on the bench to sit and do nothing while the other kids have fun. And after a whole game's worth of inactivity, she has to take a nap. Having outgrown naps, Ramona pretends to snore, which wakes up the others, who also pretend to snore. This leads to her being called "the worst rester" and being the last person allowed to get up. On top of all that, when she is still sulking from that incident (which was, it bears repeating, frustrating due to the sheer amount of forced inactivity and misjudgment), the adults assume she's worn out.
Ramona refusing to go to school (because she thinks her teacher, Miss Binney, doesn’t like her) and being called a "kindergarten dropout".
Howie has a bit of bad luck in this book too: he doesn't have dirt or trikes to play with (and Ramona doesn't sympathize and tells him they're for nursery), then he has to wear a Halloween costume he dislikes.
During Ramona the Brave, the class's Halloween project is making owls from paper bags. Ramona, who seems to have inherited her dad's gift for art, makes a great one. However, Susan copies it. Worse, Mrs. Griggs assumes Susan made the original and praises her in front of the class. Ramona doesn't want to speak up for fear of being called a tattletale, so she retaliates by scrunching up Susan's owl. Mrs. Griggs's response is to make Ramona apologize to Susan in front of the entire class.
Ramona's Heroic BSoD after thinking her teacher thinks she's a nuisance in Ramona Quimby, Age 8.
In the same book, Ramona feels unwell and throws up in class. It turns out to be stomach flu. For readers who are huge suckers for the Sick Episode trope, this can be very tearjerking, especially when Ramona thinks back to her teacher’s “nuisance” comment and feels like she really is a nuisance for throwing up. Made worse by the fact that if only Ramona had told Mrs. Whaley she wasn't feeling well, then she would probably have been excused from class before she threw up and been spared the humiliation, but she didn't want to speak up because she didn't want to be a nuisance. note Though the jury's still out— Ramona didn't really know it was serious until she felt she couldn't move; even if she weren't angsting about being a nuisance, she might still not have felt like she needed to tell until she felt incapable of speaking.
In Ramona and Her Father, Ramona needs a sheep costume for the church Christmas pageant. Her mother, already stressed, mentions this to Dad when the girls are supposed to be in bed. Dad then says, "We don't want a spoiled brat on our hands," causing Ramona to conclude her father thinks she is one.
Really, almost every chapter of Ramona and Her Father is sad in some way or other, because it deals with Mr. Quimby being out of work. Seeing her parents constantly worried and rarely happy anymore upsets Ramona far more than the financial corner-cutting does. Even worse is her fear that her father's new stress-induced habit of smoking will ruin his health. Eventually, he does quit smoking for that reason but becomes grouchy from withdrawal, and when Ramona comes home from school one day to find her father not home, she worries that he might have abandoned the family because he was angry that she made him give up his cigarettes – obviously an irrational fear, but painfully real to Ramona. Then, some time later, she comes home to the smell of cigarette smoke and calls her father out for having "cheated", and he very sadly and wearily admits that he did but assures her that he's trying to quit.
The death of Picky-Picky, the family cat in Ramona Forever.
Same book, Ramona and Beezus's tiff. Ramona wants to ride Howie's bike, but Beezus says no. Ramona yells at her and runs off to ride the bike anyway, calling Beezus "Pizzaface". The real reason Ramona chose this insult was that they had recently eaten pizza, which they don't normally get to eat, and her usual insult is "Pieface", which is not really meant to be offensive. However, Beezus, who is going through an insecure phase, thinks Ramona meant her face was red and blotchy like pizza sauce. Instead of asking for clarification, she just cries, and Ramona feels guilty because she was just going for a variation on Pieface. Ramona does fall off Howie's bike and tells Beezus, but her sister is sulking because of the Pizzaface misunderstanding and lashes out by calling Ramona a "hateful little creep", causing Ramona to think that Beezus is glad that she's injured. And when they make up, it's during their cat's funeral.
The death of the series's author Beverly Cleary at age 104, on March 25, 2021.
