| Dear Mr. Henshaw |
Article Index for Dear |
Website Links For Dear |
Information AboutDear Mr. Henshaw |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT DEAR MR. HENSHAW | |
| 1983 novels | |
| childrens novels | |
| young adult novels | |
| newbery medal winners book | |
| epistolary novels | |
|
Dear Mr. Henshaw is a Newbery Medal -winning juvenile Fiction Novel by Beverly Cleary . The character of Mr. Henshaw is a novelist who does not actually appear in the book. The story is actually about Leigh Botts, a young boy who lives with his Divorce d mother and misses his father. The beginning of the book is a collection of letters written from Leigh to Mr. Henshaw, his favorite author. The letters show a progression as Leigh grows up. They also reflect his desire to become a writer. As the book progresses, the format changes from letters to diary entries. Mr. Henshaw apparently answered at least one of Leigh's letters and suggested that if he wanted to be a writer the best thing to do would be to write in a Diary every day. At first Leigh's diary entries take the form of unsent additional letters to Mr. Henshaw, even beginning with the Salutation , "Dear Mr. Pretend Henshaw." But as he matures, Leigh eventually decides that he does not need to do this and begins keeping his diary only for himself. The diary reveals Leigh's feelings of loneliness at his school, detail his troubles with an unknown schoolmate secretly stealing his lunch before lunchtime, and most of all address the feelings of sorrow he has over his parents' divorce and his father's absence. Unlike many of Cleary's novels, ''Dear Mr. Henshaw'' does not fit into any other series or continuity. It did eventually spawn a sequel many years later, however, titled '' Strider ''. Also, while most of Cleary's children's novels take place in or near Portland, Oregon , ''Dear Mr. Henshaw'' takes place in California . For teachers who might use this book in the classroom, it appeals to fourth and fifth grade students. The main character is in the second grade but progresses to sixth grade less than 10 pages in. Some of the projects that can be researched are monarch butterflies, life of a truck driver, and catering businesses. |
|
|