Famous author Beverly Cleary and her family were the first owners of 1091 Creston Road, living there from 1957 to 1968. The home was designed by architect Roger Lee, a renowned midcentury modernist. Beverly Atlee Bunn was born on April 12, 1916, in McMinnville, Oregon. After high school, Cleary attended Chaffey Junior College in Ontario, California before enrolling at the University of California at Berkley, from which she graduated in 1938. She then received a degree from the University of Washington’s School of Librarianship in 1939 and began working as a children’s librarian in Yakima, WA. While she was working at the public library in Yakima, she recalled meeting a little boy. In an interview later in life, Cleary recalled that the little boy “faced me rather ferociously once and said, where are the books about kids like us? And it changed my whole attitude.” She remembered her own boredom with the books she read as a child and her pledge to write books in which children could find themselves. In 1950, Cleary published her first book. Henry Higgins, a book about a rambunctious young boy, introduced a contemporary note into children’s literature. The story—like all the books Cleary would write—dealt with the real, everyday issues that children were experiencing at the time. Cleary was a pioneer in the genre of children’s literature. Her books steered the genre away from fantasy and historical fiction. In 1940, Beverly married Clarence Cleary, a graduate student whom she had met when she was at Berkley. The two moved to San Francisco and later had two children. Beverly Cleary died in Carmel, California at the age of 104. Her 39 books, including two memoirs, have been translated into more than 14 languages and sold in more than 20 countries. Many of her stories have been adapted for film and television and remain beloved classics by children all over the world.