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    Runaway Ralph
    Runaway Ralph
    Runaway Ralph
    Audiobook2 hours

    Runaway Ralph

    Written by Beverly Cleary

    Narrated by B.D. Wong

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    About this audiobook

    Newbery Medal-winning author Beverly Cleary ramps up the humor and adventure in the second book in the Ralph S. Mouse trilogy.

    With a motorcycle to rev and the open road to see, Ralph S. Mouse is itching to run away from his overprotective family! But once he escapes to a summer campground nearby, the horrors of the wild make him doubt his plan. Angry cats, scary watchdogs, and grouchy gophers are only the half of it...

    But then he befriends Garf, a sad and friendless boy at the camp. Though he wants desperately to be back home with his relatives, Ralph realizes that he may need to help Garf before he can help himself.

    Runaway Ralph is perfect for independent reading or for shared reading at home or in a classroom. This fun story is the second of a trilogy, along with The Mouse and the Motorcycle and Ralph S. Mouse, all inspired by the author's hope to create appealing books for boys and girls—and by the sight of her son playing with toy cars.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJan 23, 2007
    ISBN9780061373800
    Author

    Beverly Cleary

    Beverly Cleary is one of America's most beloved authors. As a child, she struggled with reading and writing. But by third grade, after spending much time in her public library in Portland, Oregon, she found her skills had greatly improved. Before long, her school librarian was saying that she should write children's books when she grew up. Instead she became a librarian. When a young boy asked her, "Where are the books about kids like us?" she remembered her teacher's encouragement and was inspired to write the books she'd longed to read but couldn't find when she was younger. She based her funny stories on her own neighborhood experiences and the sort of children she knew. And so, the Klickitat Street gang was born! Mrs. Cleary's books have earned her many prestigious awards, including the American Library Association's Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, presented to her in recognition of her lasting contribution to children's literature. Dear Mr. Henshaw won the Newbery Medal, and Ramona Quimby, Age 8 and Ramona and Her Father have been named Newbery Honor Books. Her characters, including Beezus and Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins, and Ralph, the motorcycle-riding mouse, have delighted children for generations.

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    Reviews for Runaway Ralph

    4/5

    379 ratings23 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would when I began. This covers the story of the years in the early 16th century when Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The story obviously covers the ceiling in great detail, and gives the reader great detail into not only the Biblical stories, but also the process used to complete the actual painting. In addition, the author spends a great deal of time going through the politics and wars of the time, and Pope Julius II is covered almost as much as Michelangelo.

      There were many parts that dragged for me as I do not have a truly great interest in the art world, but the book certainly helped created an appreciation for the process of creating such beautiful art. I certainly hope to visit Rome some day to view Chapel and other works of art referenced in this book.
    • 5/5
      Now THIS is how it's done! In addition to a close view of Michelangelo at work, we get fascinating profiles of a cast of characters including ferocious Pope Julius II and man-about-town Raphael, as well as accounts of the violent events that were occurring while the Sistine Chapel was being painted. I can't wait for the release of Ross King's upcoming "Leonardo and the Last Supper."
    • 5/5
      I I liked that there were funny parts, like when the little mice wanted to ride Ralph’s motorcycle. And there were also scary parts like whenCato tried to get Ralph.
    • 4/5
      Manages to bring alive a tedious subject the painting of a fresco. Far from being dull, this book captures the process. Also tells of the other happenings in the Italian peninsula during this time.
    • 4/5
      I enjoy Ross King's writing on topics of art history. He presents the facts in an entertaining way that does not read like a text book and, he is a welcome addition to my library of Canadian born authors. This book told the story of the painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. I read this book in anticipation of going to a lecture presented by the authors of THE SISTINE SECRETS. Having read Mr. King's book, I think I will be saving my money and not purchasing THE SISTINE SECRETS. I would like to read one of Ross King's fictional books, so maybe I'll invest the savings there.
    • 4/5
      I think Ross King has got it just about right. He tells the story of how and why Michelangelo painted the frescoes on the Sistine chapel in the Vatican city and he also tells us why they are a masterpiece of Renaissance art. The book would appeal to the more casual reader, but still holds plenty of interest for readers more widely read on the Italian Renaissance. The story is told in linear fashion and so we witness the struggles of Michelangelo as he spends four years of his life working and figuring on a scaffold just below the Sistine chapel ceiling. His story is placed in context of a master craftsman working to earn his living in the city states of the IIalian renaissance. For a proven artist as Michelangelo was when Pope Julius II awarded him the contract it was still a risk to undertake such a venture. A work of such magnitude presented it?s own problems and Michelangelo had to solve them as he went along, always aware that competition among the elite artists was fierce and there was no room for failure. Ross KIng manages to bring his characters to life and at the same time sketch in the historical events around them. His view of life in Renaissance Italy has enough substance to make this reader feel like he has created the right atmosphere and explains why the characters acted in ways that might be puzzling to modern readers. For example even an artist as well known as Michelangelo was forced to work and live in cramped and dirty conditions being forced to share his bed with two of his fellow artists.Ross King is an art historian and so he understands the techniques involved in frescoing a renaissance ceiling, and in this book he is able to make this subject an integral part of the story without sounding dry and over scholarly. As a reader I could appreciate the problems and marvel at the way an artist of the calibre of Michelangelo was able to solve them. Life gets in the way of art and Pope Julius? war mongering with the French and the Venetians was always likely to derail Michelangelo?s work as were problems within his own family, but Michelangelo was something of a workaholic as well as being proud and stubborn and so although at times tested to his limits we could understand how he succeeded.While Michelangelo was employed in the Sistine chapel, Raphael another great artist of the period was frescoing the walls of Pope Julius? Library and Ross King uses these two very different character to point up the differences between them, so much so that the book becomes a story of both of these artists with King able to compare and contrast their different painting style as well as their life styles. Raphael was young, good looking, charming to all those around him. Michelangelo was not. King sums up the differences in their painting styles like this:? One way to understand the differing styles of the two artists is through a pair of aesthetic categories developed two and a half centuries later by the Irish statesman and writer Edmund Burke??? For Burke those things we call beautiful have the properties of smoothness, delicacy, softness of colour and elegance of movement. The sublime, on the other hand comprehends the vast, the obscure, the powerful, the rugged, the difficult attributes which produce in the spectator a kind of astonished wonder and even terror. For the people of Rome in 1511, Raphael was beautiful but Michelangelo was sublime. Of course King dispels the popular myths about Michelangelo and the Sistine chapel: he did not paint it single handedly (he had a whole team of painters working with him) and he didn?t paint it lying on his back on the scaffold.King for the most part uses secondary sources; of which there are many, but he uses the material to bring the story into the reach of many more people. Not an original history or an imaginative historical novel, but a solid piece of writing that will inform and entertain many readers who give it their attention and so for me A four star read.
    • 4/5
      Such cute little stories in this series. Easy for my son & I to enjoy. Looking forward to reading the 3rd installment.
    • 3/5
      This was an interesting book that at times got weighed down by the descriptions in vast detail of the processes that were used for different types of painting including but not restricted to the frescoes that were painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. This was really more a combined biography of Michelangelo, Pope Julius II, and Raphael.The pictures of the Sistine Chapel frescoes were beautiful but it would have been much nicer if they had not been all lumped together in one pictures but the panels shown individually. I often had to search the Internet for an individual image so that I could understand what the writer was talking about.
    • 5/5
      What a brilliant traipse through history. King's depiction of Michelangelo brought the man alive to me. The frustrations he felt having to put aside his first love of sculpting to paint commissions by the Pope and his struggles in getting them to pay him his dues were painful.It was really interesting to read about how he would paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in a medium in which he was originally unfamiliar and clearly not his forte but the strength of his belief in himself and of course his genius enabled him to create one of the most amazing masterpieces of art.
    • 4/5
      I love this s***. Simple as that. and Ross has that flair of a good writer. Well documented, very organized, he can get you through a boring intensive recap of warring nations with the placement of a well-timed joke. An interesting perspective on Michelangelo (many sources are letters to and from the great artist). A reminder of how religion have their paws in everything (in this case, the roman catholic juggernaut) and how artists can make it or break it.
    • 4/5
      I usually enjoy Ross King's art-historical works, and this one, treating Michelangelo's career and his commission to paint the Sistine Chapel, was no exception. Great detail and a fast-paced read.
    • 5/5
      great i like it am 10 years old
    • 5/5
      Most everything I was told or thought I found out I was wrong. Many artists are treated as mythological superheroes and Ross King does a fine job of discussing the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo, and 16th century Italy. A must read for art lovers!
    • 5/5
      A great telling of the story of the Sistine chapel. I wish I had read it before seeing the ceiling. At least I have pictures. I have a much better and hopefully more accurate understanding of Michelangelo the man. It also depends my understanding of his artistic influence.
    • 4/5
      As an art history buff, I gravitate towards topics like this one -- the story of how Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Sometimes, though, art historians can be dull in their presentation -- in full or in part. Not so with Ross King, author of "Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling". I found this fascinating from beginning to end and learned a lot in the process of reading this book.Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor, first and foremost, and it was with great reluctance that he obeyed Pope Julius II's order to come to Rome and spend several years working on, and supervising, the now-iconic Sistine Chapel ceiling. Not only did I learn in detail more about the process of fresco and more about the art world at the time (Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael were contemporaries), I also learned more about the intricacies of papal rule and its importance to artists for their survival. Nothing that I was completely clueless about, due to my interest in art history, but definitely did fill in my knowledge.I also learned interesting tidbits such as:--The Sistine Chapel got its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who had it built in the 15th century. (p. 23)-- "Any one lucky enough to be the nephew of a pope could usually count on rapid promotion. The word nepotism comes in fact, from nipote, Italian for nephew" (p. 28).-- Michelangelo's first attempts at large-scale compositions during his work on the chapel were due to his thinking more as a sculptor. (p. 151).I am delighted to learn that Ross King has written several more books that reflect on art history. It's hard for me to decide what I'd want to read next -- perhaps "The Judgment of Paris" (about the birth of impressionism) or "Defiant Spirits" (about the Modernist Revolution). Or should I start more at the beginning with his first, "Brunelleschi's Dome?" Most likely it'll be whichever one I come across first in a bookstore.
    • 3/5
      5446. Michelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling, by Ross King (read 26 Feb 2017) Because I so enjoyed reading Ross King's Brunelleschi's Dome on 12 Jan 2007, when I saw this book I decided to read it. It tells the story which begins in 1508 when Pope Julius II induced Michelangelo (born 6 Mar 1475., died 18 Feb 1564) to decorate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The book tells in detail, much of it being technical, of the fresco work that Michelangelo did, and difficulties he overcame to create the most famous ceiling in the world. One is amazed anew by the life style of Julius II and his temperament--though the life style of too many Popes of that time we know to be scandalous--but one is glad that such behavior by the Pope did not overly phase Michelangelo,. I certainly would be glad to see the ceiling again after reading he book, but the Internet does enable one to see some of it, probably better than a tourist could.
    • 4/5
      Such cute little stories in this series. Easy for my son & I to enjoy. Looking forward to reading the 3rd installment.
    • 3/5
      I loved this book as a kid, and am amazed how well my garage sale copy held up! My youngest picked it off the shelf for our family reading time as we are in between series.

      It was unfortunate timing, as we had just put out poison because over a month of live traps had not cured our mouse infestation. But the book was as fun and as charming as I remember, and left me feeling very guilty when my son begged me to go back to the live traps and pleaded to keep one as a pet. Alas, the poison did its job.

      Cleary's writing is far from brilliant, but her storytelling is superb. She breathes life into her characters and now I have a bit more insight into why I don't like cats, I feel guilty for putting out poison to kill mice, and I always dreamed of going to summer camp! Still loved it after all these years!
    • 5/5
      In my opinion the most exciting, engaging, and universally loved Beverly Cleary book of them all. It is the only book of its kind where kids sit still, pay attention, and are genuinely disappointed when the bell rings to end class. What is not to love about a lovable young mouse, that is tired of his hum-drum life, setting out on an adventure on a red motorcycle to find quarter from family, repetition, and those ever present parental expectations that make this little mouse so easy to relate to at any age?
    • 3/5
      My boys loved the first book a lot and they always liked hearing about Ralph's encounters, but the excitement wore down a quarter through on this one. The kids in this one weren't as likable as they were in the first and that may have been why this one ended without any immediate requests for the next one.
    • 3/5
      In this sequel to The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Ralph runs away from the hotel. He is fed up with the adults scolding him to be more responsible and his cousins pestering him for rides. When his mom forces him to give rides to the little mice, and declares that he will have to make it a nightly habit, he has had enough. One of the guests at the hotel is a boy, Garf, headed to camp. Ralph has seen many of these campers over the years, and he discovers that the sweet bugle notes that he hears every night emanate from the same Happy Acres Camp. Envisioning a life filled with careless kids who drop plenty of food to eat, Ralph makes his escape. The road to the camp is filled with perils, but Ralph bravely endures. Once he reaches Happy Acres, though, his dream of an idyllic life is shattered. The watch dog tries to keep him out, a pack of cats nearly eat him, and he is eventually caught by Garf and held captive in a mouse cage in the art room. Now Ralph knows that living on his own is not the wonderful paradise he thought it would be, and he longs to return to home. After befriending Garf, and using a little smart planning, Ralph might just be able to work everything out after all.Another classic kid book that I never read when I was younger. I can see the appeal for children, with cute talking mice and wily cats. For some reason, I was a bit uninterested in the beginning of the story. I do like Ralph, but I wasn't too invested in his getaway. I was certain he would be fine, so none of the dangers threatening him caused me much tension, and I only became more engaged when the story included Garf and his difficulties. I was much more anxious to find out if Garf could make friends and clear his name, and the story was a faster read for me after those plot elements were introduced. Throughout the book, though, I was amused at how much like an adolescent Ralph is, and was glad to see that he learned some lessons and matured by the end of the book. The story is perfect for young kids, with a good message and a lot of fun adventure, and is a pleasant read for older persons, as well.
    • 4/5
      runaway ralph was a great book.i would recomend it to someone who likes fiction.i did not want to stop reading.i like her books. this one was great.
    • 5/5
      It's a mouse, his motorcycle, and his world of enlightenment and cat dodging--not to be missed when the rodents of life start gnawing away at your soul. Make sure your helmet is made out of a ping pong ball.