Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary is a touching story told by a boy who is learning to cope with a tough life by writing about his experiences and seeing things from other points of view.
Summary
Leigh is a boy who has a tough and lonely life with his single mom. His mother works long hours and attends school to try and make a better life for her son, and his father is a trucker who is rarely around.
The book follows Leigh through his letters to an author he admires, Mr. Henshaw. His letters are heartfelt and honest. Through his correspondence with the author (starting in 2nd grade), he decides that he would like to become an author someday. At the suggestion of Mr. Henshaw, he begins writing in a journal.
His writing reveals his struggles with loneliness, the divorce of his parents, the loss of his beloved dog, and his lack of self worth. Through the process of writing, readers get to see his thinking progress along with his ability to express himself as he learns to cope with the difficulties of life and to see his own potential.
Impressions
It is easy to see why the book won the Newbery Medal. It is a very realistic look at the life of a boy through his own eyes and Cleary does a wonderful job of taking on the persona of this melancholy character. The writing progresses throughout as the character learns more vocabulary and it emphasizes the writing process and development that occurs through the regular practice of writing. I can imagine being inspired by this book when I was younger, although I have never read it until now.
The boy is so honest and forgiving that he is easy to like and the reader is hopeful that he will be all right. I felt a pang of pain when he longed for his father to call, and when he found out that his dog had run away. I celebrated with him when he made a new friend and when he got invited to meet a real live author. The use of letters and a journal to convey the story makes it that much more intimate for the reader and keeps us close as we get to know the innermost thoughts and feelings of this boy.
Professional Reviews
Possibly inspired by the letters Cleary has received as a
children's author, this begins with second-grader Leigh Botts' misspelled fan
letter to Mr. Henshaw, whose fictitious book itself derives from the old
take-off title Forty Ways To Amuse a Dog. Soon Leigh is in sixth grade and
bombarding his still-favorite author with a list of questions to be answered
and returned by "next Friday," the day his author report is due. Leigh
is disgruntled when Mr. Henshaw's answer comes late, and accompanied by a set
of questions for Leigh to answer. He threatens not to, but as "Mom keeps
nagging me about your dumb old questions" he finally gets the job
done--and through his answers Mr. Henshaw and readers learn that Leigh
considers himself "the mediumest boy in school," that his parents
have split up, and that he dreams of his truck-driver dad driving him to school
"hauling a forty-foot reefer, which would make his outfit add up to
eighteen wheels altogether. . . . I guess I wouldn't seem so medium then."
Soon Mr. Henshaw recommends keeping a diary (at least partly to get Leigh off
his own back) and so the real letters to Mr. Henshaw taper off, with
"pretend," unmailed letters (the diary) taking over. . . until Leigh
can write "I don't have to pretend to write to Mr. Henshaw anymore. I have
learned to say what I think on a piece of paper." Meanwhile Mr. Henshaw offers
writing tips, and Leigh, struggling with a story for a school contest, concludes
"I think you're right. Maybe I am not ready to write a story."
Instead he writes a "true story" about a truck haul with his father
in Leigh's real past, and this wins praise from "a real live author"
Leigh meets through the school program. Mr. Henshaw has also advised that
"a character in a story should solve a problem or change in some
way," a standard juvenile-fiction dictum which Cleary herself applies modestly
by having Leigh solve his disappearing lunch problem with a burglar-alarmed
lunch box--and, more seriously, come to recognize and accept that his father can't
be counted on. All of this, in Leigh's simple words, is capably and unobtrusively
structured as well as valid and realistic. From the writing tips to the
divorced-kid blues, however, it tends to substitute prevailing wisdom for the
little jolts of recognition that made the Ramona books so rewarding.
Kirkus,
1983
"DEAR
MR. HENSHAW . . . " It all begins when Leigh Botts is in second grade and
writes a letter to an author. "My teacher read your book about the dog to
our class. It was funny. We licked it." In third, fourth, and fifth grades
the letters are perfunctory as well as predictable ("If you answer I get
to put your letter on the bulletin board . . ." "Our teacher is
making us write to authors for Book Week . . ."). In sixth grade there’s
another teacher and another assisgnment. It is here that what has been a smattering
of letters turns into a correspondence in earnest. The boy sends off a list of ten questions to
the author (How many books have you written? What is your favorite animal?) and an admonition--"I
need your answer by next Friday. This is urgent.!" The author, in his
turn, sends back answers (not, it may be noted, by next Friday) including one
which says that his "favorite animal was a purple monster who ate children
who sent authors long lists of questions for reports instead of learning to use
the library." Then, in a gesture which proves he is obviously not without
resources of his own, Mr. Henshaw includes a list of 10 questions--for Leigh to
answer. At this point Leigh turns peevish, somewhat mouthy ("About those
questions you sent me. I'm not going to answer them, and you can't make me.
You're not my teacher"), and finally apologetic. But answer them he does,
largely because the TV is broken, his mother says he has to, and, we suspect,
there are things on his mind that need sharing. It is in the answers to these
questions and in the letters and diaries that follow that we learn about Leigh and
about his family. Since his parents' recent divorce he and his mother (clearly
a sensible type) have lived in Pacific Grove, on California's Central Coast,
where Leigh is still considered a new boy in school and his only friend is Mr. Fridley
the custodian. His father, meanwhile, is a long distance trucker,
happy-go-lucky and not much given to settling down. In fact, Leigh spends a lot
of time waiting for him to call, to come for a visit, to notice him in some
way. From his description of a life that is at times both dreary and lonely, it
is easy to see why Leigh (who calls himself "the mediumest boy in the
class") puts so much importance on his letters to Mr. Henshaw. And it is
through this correspondence that Leigh learns to confront the facts of his life
and to handle his anger at his parents' divorce. By the time his father does
visit, Leigh realizes that although he still misses him it is not the kind of missing
he once felt. It is as if life were filling in the chinks around him: there is
a new friend, he wins an honorable mention in the writing contest, and goes to
lunch with a Famous Author (not Mr. Henshaw). In one of the most touching
scenes in the book Leigh discovers that his father is not as tall as he
remembers him to be. Epistolary novels, by their very nature, are apt to limit
a writer, but Beverly Cleary, pitfalls not withstanding, has peopled her story
with a group of fully realized characters. Even Mr. Henshaw comes alive as a
likable yet slightly irreverent person who claims that the reason he writes
books is that he has "read every book in the library and because writing
beats mowing the lawn or shoveling snow."
The letters themselves are so real they make your teeth ache--a fact
that should come as no surprise given the mail Cleary reads and answers every
year. And if Leigh isn't Henry Huggins
or Beezus or Ramona or Ellen Tebbits--well, here I feel like one of those teachers
who ask a child why he isn't as bright/clever/winsome as his older
sister/brother/cousin. By this time we all know that, like a child, a character
is who he is. So let me just say, "Welcome, Leigh Botts."
Rodowsky,
1983
Library Uses
This book could be used as a book study for a book club or as a read aloud for a group before beginning a young author’s club.
References
Cleary, B., & Zelinsky, P. (1983). Dear Mr. Henshaw. New York, NY: Morrow.
Dear Mr. Henshaw. (1983). Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved from
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/beverly-cleary/dear-mr-henshaw/
Rodowsky, C. (1983, August 14). Life through the letter box; Dear Mr. Henshaw. The Washington
Post. Retrieved from http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:2052/hottopics/lnacadem/?verb=sr&csi
=8075&sr=HLEAD(Life Through The Letter Box) and date is 1983
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