Leigh Botts Books in Order

The Leigh Botts books follow one boy from grade school into high school as he writes his way through divorce, loneliness, and the slow work of figuring out who he is. Told in letters and diary entries, they offer a more introspective side of Beverly Cleary’s writing while keeping her straightforward, conversational tone.

Dear Mr. Henshaw begins with second‑grader Leigh sending a short thank‑you note to his favorite author, Boyd Henshaw. Each year he writes again, partly for school assignments and partly because he likes the idea that a real writer might read his words. By sixth grade his life is harder: his parents have divorced, he’s the new kid at school, and someone keeps stealing from his lunch. When Mr. Henshaw replies with a list of questions instead of easy answers, Leigh is annoyed but gradually starts to take the exercise seriously.

Those written answers turn into a kind of private journal addressed to “Mr. Pretend Henshaw.” Leigh vents about his truck‑driver father’s broken promises, his mother’s long work hours, and his own sense of being invisible. At the same time, he begins to notice small, solid things that help—making one real friend, building a simple alarm for his lunchbox, and discovering that writing about his life gives him a measure of control.

In Strider, set a couple of years later, Leigh keeps a more conventional diary. He’s now in high school, more aware of girls and more realistic about his parents’ separate lives. When he and his friend Barry find an abandoned dog on the beach, they name him Strider and agree to share custody. The dog becomes both a joy and a test: sharing isn’t always easy, and Leigh is forced to deal with jealousy, guilt, and the pressure to be fair.

Running becomes another thread. Encouraged by Strider’s energy, Leigh joins the track team and finds that pushing his body brings a different kind of satisfaction than sitting with his notebook. The two activities—running and writing—mirror each other as he learns to set goals, accept setbacks, and take pride in gradual improvement rather than overnight change.

What ties the Leigh Botts books together is their honesty about feelings many kids recognize but don’t always see on the page: missing a parent but being angry with them, feeling out of place at school, watching your mother date someone new, or worrying that your work will never be good enough. The stories don’t tidy everything up, but they end on notes of earned hope, with Leigh a little surer of his own voice each time readers leave him.