I loved her books many years ago, when I was a child. But I stopped reading them when I became older and discovered the adventure of SF. I now discover that this caused me to miss her best work. For example her Newberry award winning "Dear Mr. Henshaw" was published in 1984. I was 33 years old at the time; I just did not read it, and in fact I have not finished it yet-- I grabbed my daughter's copy and started, but she grabbed it back...
There is an interesting moral to the story of Ms Cleary's life-- find what you do best (or very well) and stick with it. Writing children's books is notoriously ill-paid and "gets no respect" from other writers or the world. Ms Clearly kept her head down and kept writing, authored more than 50 novels, that have stayed in print as she became a beloved and award-winning author. She is now said to have a net worth in the range of 20 million dollars (!).
AND ALAS, an update as of 05-Sep-2022:
Ms. Cleary died on 27-Mar-2021, less than a year after I first posted this blog entry... She apparently never made her 105th birthday. Wikipedia lists her age at death as 104. Her works will live on and continue delighting children for many, many years to come.