Emily's Runaway Imagination

Emily's Runaway Imagination

First edition
Author	Beverly Cleary
Illustrator	Beth and Joe Krush
Language	English
Publisher	William Morrow and Co.
Publication place	United States of America
Media type	Print
Pages	221

Emily's Runaway Imagination is a children's novel by American writer Beverly Cleary, first published in 1961. ^[1] Set in the 1920s, the plot follows the experiences of a young, imaginative girl named Emily over the course of a year. ^[2] She eventually starts a library in her fictional hometown of Pitchfork, Oregon. ^[1]

The book is notable for its portrayal of a fictional Chinese immigrant named Fong Quok, who was inspired by Quong Hop, who owned a laundry business in Yamhill County, Oregon, where Cleary grew up. ^[1]

Plot

Emily is a young girl noteworthy throughout her hometown of Pitchfork, Oregon for her great imagination and for the predicaments she inadvertently manages to create, such as intoxicating her father's pigs by feeding them rotten apples to avoid a chiding from her mother for wasting food, using Clorox to bleach a plow horse white to impress a visiting cousin, and humiliating herself publicly by correcting the language of a Chinese neighbor after he mispronounces the name of her pet collie.

References

1. Sabnis, Sonia (April 2022). "Chinese Immigrants and the Changing Terms of Exclusion in Beverly Cleary's Emily's Runaway Imagination and Fifteen". The Lion and the Unicorn. 46 (2): 133–152. doi:10.1353/uni.2022.0018 – via ProQuest.
2. Doerner, Bridget (1987). "School Library Journal". School Library Journal. Retrieved February 10, 2026– via EBSCOhost.