Dear Mr. Henshaw

Leigh Botts has a favorite author, Boyd Henshaw, and he writes to him with questions. When Mr. Henshaw writes back, the letters turn into an unlikely friendship. Through Leigh's letters, and later a diary he starts keeping, readers come to know a boy living with his mother after his parents' divorce, missing his father, settling into a new school and often feeling lonely and angry. Putting his thoughts on paper slowly helps him sort out his feelings and find his own voice as a writer. Beverly Cleary tells the whole story in Leigh's own words, with humor, warmth and honesty about the ups and downs of an ordinary boyhood. Illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky, the book won the Newbery Medal.