Ramona and Her Mother

Throughout the series, Ramona demonstrates a love of books and reading and enjoys repeating words that she finds phonetically pleasing. Now, in second grade, Ramona’s language studies focus less on fostering a love of story and more on learning language mechanics. Correctly spelling words is far less fun, and she finds spelling tedious and confusing. Preferring to engage with language creatively, Ramona decorates her letters, “filling all the double oo’s she could find with crossed eyes and frowns” on a worksheet, which does not go over well with her teacher, Mrs. Rudge (64). Ramona desires others to see her as competent, and her challenges with spelling become a source of frustration and embarrassment. Because she is so deeply invested in words, Ramona worries that Mrs. Rudge doesn’t like her because she can’t spell well. When she overhears portions of her parents’ conversations, she hears the word “school” and assumes they are worried about her lack of spelling ability. Ramona’s frustrations with language and spelling point to the novel’s broader exploration of communication. The third-person narrative provides detailed insight into the way that Ramona’s mind works, while also demonstrating the difficulties of making that process clear to other people, who, in turn, often find her behavior perplexing.

Ramona’s spelling challenges, moreover, parallel her struggle to understand the world around her. She often feels confused and uncertain, as she does when trying to make sense of complex spelling rules. She is confused by a commercial whose tagline is “Rolaids spells relief”—a slogan still used by the company as of 2024—and feels as though the adult world is setting her up for failure. “Spelling,” she reflects, “was full of traps—blends and silent letters and letters that sounded one way in one word and a different way in another—and having a man stand there on television fooling children was no help” (105). Having to learn rules is one thing, but having to memorize all the exceptions feels impossible, even without the added confusion of advertising wordplay. Though the precise spelling of words remains troublesome for Ramona, learning to write in cursive redeems her love of language and endears her to Mrs. Rudge. Learning to write in cursive symbolizes her coming of age as the text marks her milestone: “No more babyish printing for Ramona” (175). Writing in script appeals to Ramona’s creative nature and desire for independence and autonomy, as cursive allows her to customize her signature to fit her identity. She can’t bend spelling rules, but she can use her signature as an act of nonconformity.