Beverly, Right Here

Beverly, Right Here is a part of the Three Rancheros series. The series follows the journeys of Raymie Nightingale (her real last name is Clarke), Louisiana Elefante, and Beverly Tapinski. The standard definition for “ranchero” is a person who works on a ranch, but none of the girls work on ranches. They come from Florida and are working class. In Raymie Nightingale, the girls go on missions together. They retrieve a library book from a home for older people, and they try to rescue Louisiana’s cat from an ominous shelter, which is how Beverly winds up with Buddy. Due to their teamwork, Louisiana labels them the Three Rancheros. Beverly thinks Louisiana is talking about the Three Musketeers, but Louisiana wants to be different, so she sticks with the Three Rancheros.

In Beverly, Right Here, Beverly and Elmer don’t become friends immediately. In Raymie Nightingale, the three girls aren’t friends from the get-go. Thus, friendships take time to develop. Raymie, Louisiana, and Beverly meet in baton-twirling class. Each girl wants to learn to twirl batons and enter the Little Miss Central Florida Tire Contest. Beverly wants to sabotage the contest. If Raymie wins, she thinks her dad will come back. If Louisiana wins, she’ll use the money to get her cat back. Like Beverly in Beverly, Right Here, Raymie and Louisiana confront the themes of Presence Versus Absence and Facing the Cruel but Kind World. In Raymie Nightingale, Beverly confronts those themes too—her dad went to New York City, where he’s a cop.

In Beverly, Right Here, Beverly is tough and independent. She leaves home, gets a job, and drives Iola around as if she’s an adult. Beverly’s tenacious characterization commenced four years earlier in Raymie Nightingale, where Beverly announces, “My father is a cop, so I don’t think you should mess with me” (DiCamillo, Kate. Raymie Nightingale. Candlewick Press, 2016, p. 5). She also carries a knife and gets into a fight with the baton-twirling teacher. As in Beverly, Right Here, Beverly needs connection, and her rugged presentation doesn’t prevent her from forming a meaningful bond with Raymie and Louisiana.

Beverly, Right Here and Raymie Nightingale feature a third-person narrator with a limited point of view. That is, the narrator isn’t the main character, but they only focus on what the main character thinks and feels. Louisiana’s Way Home turns Louisiana into the narrator. Like Beverly, Right Here, Louisiana’s Way Home begins with a departure. As Beverly, Right Here notes, Louisiana and her grandma suddenly leave, and, like Beverly, Louisiana finds herself in serious and ridiculous situations.

Though the reader can understand each book independently, reading them all allows the reader to discover the shared threads. All three books feature crucial relationships between older and younger people. There’s Raymie and her older neighbor (Mrs. Borkowski), Louisiana and her grandma, and Beverly and Iola. Like Louisiana and her grandma, Iola makes tuna fish a key part of her diet; she serves tuna melts to Beverly, and the tuna melts bring them together. Theft, too, joins the stories. Louisiana’s grandma likes to steal (including cans of tuna), and in Beverly, Right Here, Beverly steals Mr. Denby’s Christmas photo and Jerome’s graduation tassel, and she considers stealing Mr. Denby’s money and Iola’s car.