This is my third attempt at reading Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary. First attempt: ran out of time, only read about 10 pages. Second attempt: I read about 50 pages and was bored by it.Third attempt: WOW! I get why this won the Newberry in 1984. It's a boy who starts off writing letters to his favorite author as part of a class assignment who winds up unloading his thoughts about the author, his lunch, and his father in a diary (yes, there was a boy writing in a diary before Diary of a Wimpy Kid). I love the ending, because it's a happy ending, but not one that is expected. Leigh grows, befriends a classmate, learns his lessons, fields dissapointments, not all neat and tidy but we get a glimpse of his life during one year of diary entries. This is a sensitive and thoughtful look at a middle school age boy at a time in which life, his parents' divorce, is just too confusing.
This is the book group's selection for the month of June. Join Snacktime Readers on Wednesday, June 23 at 7:00 in the Children's Room of the Central Library, 222 East Harvard Street, Glendale, CA 91205, (818)548-2035.
Ten years-old Melanie is not quite ready to travel to Italy with her family, especially when she is charged with keeping an eye out for her wandering little brother. This is another winner in the series, with lots of art, gelato, pizza, all recorded in Melanie's travel diary with a great dose of humor of a long suffering older sister. 
