Dear Mr. Henshaw Literary Elements

Children's Fiction

Middle America, early 1980s

The book is written from Leigh Botts' point of view

Depressed and hopeless, resentful and rather sad, ending more optimistically

Leigh Botts is the antagonist and his situation as the son of divorced parents the antagonist

There is conflict within Leigh regarding his feelings towards his father. On one hand he missed him and is sad for him that he lives alone but he is also angry with him for not calling enough and for allowing distance to grow between them

Leigh's father asks his mother to get back together because he missed them; this fills Leigh with a hope and joy he has not felt since the divorce as he realizes his father loved him after all

Leigh's inexperience in electronics foreshadows the lunch box explosion that his wiring caused

Leigh says that he feels upset with his father which is a huge understatement as he is very angry indeed and the anger festers and overshadows everything in his life

Although the authors in the book are fictitious, Leigh alludes to Angela Badger's books after meeting the author

The author paints a beautiful visual picture of the butterfly tree which then leads the reader to imagine the setting, calling into play senses of hearing and smell as well.

Leigh's mother works for a caterer and brings home delicious high end food but when she and Leigh want to cheer themselves up with food they buy fast food fried chicken

There is a parallel between Leigh's feelings of loneliness and his father's

The cafeteria is the phrase used to represent all of the individual children sitting eating lunch there

The lunch box brought Leigh friends which personifies the lunch box giving it a general capacity for animation that it does not actually possess