Dear Mr. Henshaw Literature and Writing Quotes

Even as a little boy, Leigh loves books so much he wants to write to the author. He can't spell, but he gets his main points across: he liked the book, and he's a boy. Right off the bat, Beverly Cleary is letting us know what this book is going to be about.

By fourth grade, Leigh knows he wants to be an author. Writing is his passion, and he's got someone to look up to and emulate, beard and all.

This is great advice for everyone who writes (which is all of us at one time or another). It's about being observant and thoughtful and then getting it all down on paper (or the computer). The last tip is the most important. Mr. H. isn't talking about just writing once, but about the practice of writing. Just like an Olympic skater doesn't wake up on the day of the games and expect to win without practicing a ton beforehand, a writer can't write one draft and expect it to be brilliant. That's why your English teachers are always bugging you to revise, revise, revise. Keep that in mind next time you're wishing that Smaug would kidnap all the English teachers until June.

How many times have we dreaded doing something and the idea of it just got worse and worse until it seemed as impossible as nailing Jell-O to a tree? Then we finally begin, and we find out it isn't as terrible as we'd built it up to be.

A lot of books (i.e. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Tale of Peter Rabbit) were first told to a particular person before being written down or published for a wider audience. Imagine writing a letter to some random kid someone told you about versus writing a letter to your friend's kid brother. The first would probably be very vague and impersonal, the second specific and detailed. Maybe even fun, depending on how you felt about your friend's kid brother.

Good dialogue tells a lot about a person and makes a story more interesting for the reader. We can see Leigh's progress as a writer when his diary entries start containing dialogue. It makes that last scene with Mom and Dad even more dramatic because it's like we're right there with them.

Leigh is starting to get it. Humor is an awesome thing that can break the tension in a story, but sometimes seriousness is exactly what's needed. If a story about starving, orphaned bear cubs was funny, something would be pretty wrong about that. Leigh still enjoyed the story a lot, even though he almost cried.

Lots of Leigh's diary entries and letters are ways the author shows us what Mr. Henshaw has been telling Leigh. Cleary is able to do this without making it too awkward. We see Leigh restate some things from Mr. H.'s letters, and that's how we know what kind of writing tips he's been getting.

Leigh is telling us another piece of advice from Mr. Henshaw: what's the point of a story if nothing really happens to the character? Like real life, no one stays the same in a good story, even if the changes are subtle.

What is it about a good, familiar book that makes us go back to it again and again? Maybe it reminds us of happier times and makes us feel safe in its familiarity. Kind of like an old, beat-up stuffed animal that we're way too old for but that we still secretly take out from time to time. Full disclosure: Shmoop still loves Dear Mr. Henshaw even though we first read it in 19…oh, never mind.

In this passage near the end of the book, Cleary is showing us some very mature thinking on Leigh's part. He can admit disappointment, but it doesn't ruin his life or dissuade him from writing. He puts things in perspective. Most people's successes come after lots of failure.