Dear Mr. Henshaw: A Newbery Award Winner

Why I Think Boys May Enjoy ThisI decided to review this book as the first one on my Books for Boys blog for a very personal reason: this is the book I recall that both got me in love with reading and also made me want to be a writer. In preparation for this review, I reread the book to see how different it is with 35 year old eyes instead of 8 year old eyes and this is what I learned:I am still Leigh Botts, but grown up. In one of the first letters, Leigh wrote “when I grow up I want to be a famous book writer with a beard like you.” And that’s what I became! Also, I remembered a major reason why I felt this story connected with me as a youth. Leigh’s experience with a hard-working single mother and an often absentee (but likable) father mirrored my childhood exactly. Cleary handles this situation that has become more and more common in complex family structures and does such an amazing job of filtering it through the eyes of a middle school boy.I also think that the first-person perspective and epistolary (meaning, a series of letters presented as a story) makes the material extremely accessible to any young reader. Further, it handles very challenging pre-teen situations such as divorce, being a new kid at school, & being bullied (his special lunch foods being stolen repeatedly) with a finesse that makes you feel like it actually was written by a sixth grade boy. She even does a great job of demonstrating some of the angsty rage that ebbs and flows in such a person throughout the book.Content/AppropriatenessThis book is more than appropriate for anyone even younger than middle school. Since it is written in first-person from Leigh’s perspective, the language selection and sentence complexity are simplified as well. This adds to both the realism of the book and the ease of accessibility.Obviously, as is well known with an author like Beverly Cleary, there is no age inappropriate content to scare away parents that might be concerned about such things. The most difficult emotional material stems around the divorce and broken promises by Leigh’s dad, but you can tell by the end of the book that Leigh is well on his way to accepting the positive aspects of his father along with understanding his shortcomings.Rating5/5 Giant Cartoon Mallets from Toonopolis, The Blog's Books for Boys review.

Had to download this thing daily. Sometimes 2-3x per day. It would not stay on our Fire 7. Amazon help is about worthless as the only place this is even addressed is in the device forum. The suggested fix did not fix. Why does there even need to be a fix? I paid money and download. Should be done. Why would a device and/or system delete something I've download w/o my knowledge or intervention. We downloaded this for summer reading requirements. In the future we will skip Kindle books and go old school regular books. Those don't return themselves!

I bought this for my niece's son who loves to read. When I was in elementary school (many, MANY years ago), Dear Mr. Henshaw was a favorite book of mine. I was happy to see that it's still in print.

I recommend this Young Readers book because of the honesty of a boy living in a single -parent home. He misses his father. He wonders if his parents will reunite. He thinks he is the reason they divorced.The book also encourages youth to write and journal.

Beverly Clearly writes through the eyes of a young boy and his troubles.I read it to my 9 yo grand daughters and they loved it.

A jewel of a book about becoming a writer, when you don’t think that’s what you want to do.

My son doesn't read unless he has to, and this was a requirement for school. He couldn't put it down. He says it's a great book!

Got this for my son. He enjoyed it.

Aunque corto, tiene una lectura bastante intensa. Lo leí por la mención que hacen sobre él en la película Stuck in love (writers) y la verdad es que lo aconsejo, aunque supongo que gustará mucho más si el lector es o quiere ser escritor.

Era lo que esperaba. La calidad es buena y todo está bien. Es una lata tener que escribir en este espacio.En mis siguientes compras no daré nunca mi opinion por lo complicado que lo hacen.Saludos

My 10 year old boy liked the book very much

Good read

ein schönes buch für einsteiger der englischen sprache..es ist schön und anschaulich geschriebenich würde es immer wieder kaufen