Beverly Bunn was excited to be out on her own. She spent two years at Chaffey and did very well in all her classes. From there, she went on to Cal Berkley. Classes were much more difficult, and she worked harder for lower grades. It was at Cal that Beverly met Clarence Cleary. She enjoyed his company, but mother did not approve! As an English major, she had to take the Comprehensive exam. The test was in two parts, the first of which she failed. Thankfully, she passed the second part and received the average of the two scores, a D! Beverly wasn't too pleased, but she was already accepted into the School of Librarianship at the University of Washington. After receiving her Librarianship diploma, she applied for jobs in Tacoma, Klamath Falls, and Yakima. She worked in Yakima for a year and then left to marry Clarence Cleary. Since her parents did not approve, they were married in Reno over a weekend. She did not break the news to her parents, instead they found out by reading it in the local paper.
Beverly Cleary moved to California to begin her life with Clarence. During their early years together, she worked in a bookstore and as an army librarian during World War II. After the war they moved back to the Berkley area. It was at this point that Beverly decided to realize her dream of becoming a writer of children's books. She wrote her first book, Henry Huggins in 1950. Her inspiration came from a group of "grubby little boys, nonreaders" who came from St. Joseph's school in Yakima. Their teacher had hoped to get them interested in reading something more exciting than their textbooks. Beverly discovered that there was not much in the library that interested them. Henry Huggins was her response to their question, "Where are the books about kids like us?"