Leigh Botts (boy)

Human beings, as social creatures, notice potential confusion in others and try to clarify anything that may be misleading.  Children are no different in their intent. They just think different things need clarification.  When Leigh Botts writes to his favorite author, Mr. Henshaw, he not only spells his name phonetically but also clarifies that he is a boy.  As Leigh says, "I don't like Leigh for a name because some people don't know how to say it or think it's a girl's name"


Beverly Cleary's Dear Mr. Henshaw is the tale of a ten year olds struggles at a new school, in a new house, with newly divorced parents as told through a series of letters he writes to his favorite author.  Even though we  never get to read Mr. Henshaw's responses they are sometimes hinted at in Leigh's next letter and from what I can gather Mr. Henshaw is part smart aleck, part busy writer rushing through his responses, and part wise mentor.  One solution Mr. Henshaw suggested was for Leigh to keep a diary instead of always writing to him.  So Leigh begins his diary entries, "Dear Pretend Mr. Henshaw."

Writing this blog I think a lot about books, I'm sure this is shocking  information for all of you, so one of the lines that stuck out to me in this books was Leigh's thoughts about books.  "I got to hiking and decided a book doesn't have to be funny to be good, although it often helps.  This book did not need to be funny."  As I reflected on the books I read thus far I think that it was easier for me to blog about books that were funny but the books that were less funny were no less good.  So that leaves the question, what makes a book good?

One of the questions Leigh asks Mr. Henshaw is, "Please give me some tips on how to write a book.  This is important to me.  I really want to know so I can get to be a famous author and write books exactly like yours." Mr. Henshaw responds with the following tips, "read, look, listen, think and write."  What excellent advice.

Reading, looking, listening, thinking and writing...that's kids stuff.  


PS This book was a little surprising because Leigh (boy) loved reading.  There have been several studies out recently about the gender gap in literacy.  Basically the claim is that literacy education is biased because we (teachers) teach reading almost exclusively through narrative, a genre more appealing to girls than boys.  They argue that boys would excel more at reading if there was more balance in the curriculum-specifically more non-fiction.  Even Leigh who loved Mr. Henshaw's books confessed to studying electrical books rather than writing a poem or story.  What do you think?  Are we biased?