Dear Mr. Henshaw Theme of Literature and Writing

Letters and diaries and stories, oh my.

This story is saturated in writing. The whole book is written in an epistolary/diary form, for starters. The main character is an avid reader who wants to be a writer, his idol is an author, and one of his main goals is to win a writing contest. There's a ton of great advice about the writing process and insights into the life of an author. Plus, one of the ways we know Leigh is growing up is by seeing how his diary writing gets more detailed, descriptive, and insightful.

Writing is an outlet for Leigh to express himself, and reading Mr. Henshaw's books teaches him a few things about coping with his own life. It's fun to see the book's author (Beverly Cleary, not Mr. Henshaw) including all these ideas about writing that she's learned from her own experience. She uses the character of Mr. Henshaw to get these ideas across to Leigh and to us.

Pretty clever of Cleary to masquerade as Boyd Henshaw. We bet she hoped that people who read Dear Mr. Henshaw would grab a pen and start writing their own letters and diaries and stories.

Did you? Oh my.

1. What makes Leigh's winning story so great? What was wrong with the wax man story?
2. What makes a good writer?
3. What's the best advice Mr. Henshaw gives about writing?
4. What role does Ways to Amuse a Dog play in the story?

Leigh's love of writing comes from his love of reading.

By writing a book about writing, the author is encouraging kids to…write. Isn't Shmoop a genius?