47 pages • 1 hour read
Beverly ClearyDear Mr. Henshaw
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1983A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
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BetaSymbols & Motifs
Leigh’s Lunch Bag
Food represents a particularly difficult part of Leigh’s life. Since his parents’ divorce, money has been tight, and the dinners his mother prepares are often humble. However, Leigh’s mother is careful to make sure Leigh has enough to eat, especially at lunchtime. He explains, “I have a lot of trouble with my lunchbag. Mom isn’t so great on cooking roasts and steaks now that Dad is gone, but she makes me good lunches” (32). Bonnie prioritizes packing Leigh healthy lunches, and fortuitously, she works for a catering company, so she can supplement Leigh’s lunches with special treats from her catering soirées. Packing her son’s lunch bag becomes a way for Bonnie to show him love and affection. She may not have the means to provide fancy clothes or a better house for him, but with Katy’s help, she spoils him where she can. When an unnamed thief begins stealing the special treats from Leigh’s lunch every day, he sees it not only as theft but also as a personal attack. Leigh’s lunch bag becomes a metaphor for his life; he can’t control or stop the thief just as he can’t change his parents’ divorce or his father’s abandonment.
For a while, Leigh endures the daily lunch theft passively and succumbs to the idea that his peers don’t care for him. He uses his letters and journal entries to express his anger: “The kids here pay more attention to my lunch than they do to me. They really watch to see what I have in my lunch because Katy gives me such good things” (25). The lunch bag storyline reaches a climax when Mr. Fridley catches Leigh in the process of destroying another kid’s lunch out of anger. The custodian warns Leigh against the dangers of descending into bitterness, and he opens Leigh’s eyes to the truth that other students experience lunch theft as well. Following this confrontation, Leigh shifts his focus and directs his anger toward catching the thief with his ingenious lunch box alarm. Feeling empowered instead of defeated, Leigh prepares to meet his foe, but when the alarm never sounds and Leigh must disarm the device, he has an epiphany. Leigh decides to forgive the anonymous thief and bask in the pure joy of his successful invention and the attention it brings from his peers. Leigh’s lunch bag symbolizes a personal triumph and a new beginning for Leigh as it brings him a friendship with Barry and sets him free from the bitterness and hatred he feels for the things he can’t change about his life.
Leigh’s Diary
In Dear Mr. Henshaw, Beverly Cleary centers the practice of daily journaling as her protagonist begins keeping a diary at Mr. Henshaw’s behest. Leigh is reluctant to take on the task at first, and his early entries begin as awkward records of his thoughts and daily activities. Leigh says, “When I started to write in it, I didn’t know how to begin” (36). However, the more Leigh writes, the more he sees the value in the practice, and his journal transforms into a place of self-expression and introspection. His entries feature emotional outbursts and laments about his problems, but they also recount precious family memories and important conversations he shares with his mother. Leigh’s journal also becomes a place of creative expression and experimentation, where Leigh works out his design for the lunch box operation and wrestles with topics for his writing contest submission. Leigh shares his success with Mr. Henshaw, saying, “When you answered my questions, you said the way to get to be an author was to write. You underlined it twice” (31). Through Mr. Henshaw’s nudging, Leigh learns that keeping a personal journal is a fulfilling and nurturing practice and the pages become a tool of empowerment as he faces challenges in his life.
Leigh’s diary is not just a place for self-expression and experimentation. It is also a space to make sense of events and emotions. By writing about every detail of his life, including the painful ones, Leigh externalizes his feelings, which makes them easier to process. Often just the task of naming fears and anxieties robs them of their power, and each time Leigh writes about his pain, he releases a bit of the sting. Though the writing doesn’t necessarily fix his problems, he admits, “I think I feel better when I write in my diary” (57). Leigh’s journal entries demonstrate his increasing ability to articulate his frustrations and fears. For example, after his phone call with his father, he uses the journal to verbalize the fear that his father is replacing him with another boy. Such contemplations and resolutions serve as a testament to Leigh’s resilience and determination to persevere in the face of life’s challenges. Leigh’s diary becomes a symbol of catharsis as he uses it to release emotional burdens, alleviate his anxiety, and engage in creativity that gives him hope for the future ahead.
Bill’s Truck
Long-haul trucking is an important way consumer goods and commodities like oil and gas are transported throughout the country. In Dear Mr. Henshaw, protagonist Leigh Botts shares in his letters that his father Bill is a truck driver, and his choice to value his trucking career over his family ruined his parents’ marriage and drove a wedge between father and son. After his parents separate, Leigh searches for answers to explain the rift. His mother, often too exhausted from solely supporting herself and Leigh, avoids fully answering his inquiries, but Leigh comes to understand that when his father chose to purchase the truck, it was the beginning of the end of the marriage: “The truck is why my parents got divorced” (16). Bonnie, who once enjoyed traveling with Bill, can’t understand his reckless lack of concern for their financial stability in leveraging their future to buy the truck. For Bill, the truck symbolizes his freedom and a way to escape the responsibilities of being a husband and father. Bonnie helps Leigh understand that Bill chose his truck over his family, and though she blames his choice on immaturity, not immorality, she is so wounded from the betrayal that it prevents her from even considering marrying again, saying, “I guess I’m really afraid I might find another man who’s in love with a truck” (52). Though Bill’s truck represents his vocation and employment, it becomes his entire identity, and he trades in the love of his wife and son for an untethered life on the road.
Leigh understands that his father has abandoned them and he resents his father’s freedom each time he traces the map trying to determine his location. While Leigh and his mother are trapped in a cramped cottage mired in poverty, Bill rides from truck stop to truck stop taking in the beauty of the scenery and cavorting with his roadie friends. However, in contrast to his mother’s resentment of the truck, Leigh romanticizes Bill’s trucking journeys, and he fixates on the memory of the time when Bill brought him along on a grape haul. In a letter, Leigh describes the truck: “His big rig sure is a beauty, with a bunk in the cab and everything” (17). When Leigh feels sad, he returns to the memory and fantasizes about his father coming to collect him in the truck, taking him on another adventure, and delivering him to school in the grand rig in front of his peers. In the end, Leigh turns the memory into a piece of art as he composes his submission for the writing contest. Entitled “A Day on Dad’s Rig,” Leigh’s story relates the grape hauling memory in vivid detail. His father’s truck may be the source of his parents’ estrangement, but for Leigh, it symbolizes the site of his most cherished memory of his father.
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