Triptych: Books Written In Letters

When choosing my three books for my triptych I decided to focus on the format of the books rather than the subject the books covered. The three books I ended up picking are Dear Mr. Henshaw written by Beverly Clearly and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky, Dear Mrs. LaRue: Letters from Obedience School written and illustrated by Mark Teague, and The Gardener written by Sarah Stewart and illustrated by David Small. The big question is what do all three of these books have in common? They are all written in letter format with the stories being told through the characters writing letters to important people in their lives.

Dear Mr. Henshaw is a young adult novel written for 8-12 year olds. The story is about Leigh (Lee) Botts, a 6th grader who wants to become a writter. The book focuses around him writing to his favorite author Boyd Henshaw starting out first as just a fan, when he was in the grades of 2nd-5th, but then on a regular basis in 6th grade. In 6th grade he started out writing to Mr. Henshaw again for a letter writing project in his English class, but the experience turned into much much more. Mr. Henshaw ends up giving Leigh one of the best gifts of all, by getting Leigh to start writing in a journal about his problems to not only give Leigh an outlet for his emotions, but also a great way to improve his writing capabilities. Leigh wrote to Mr. Henshaw and the pretend Mr. Henshaw (his diary) about all his problems including the lunch box thief, how he is lonely in school, because he is the new kid in town, how he misses his dad and his dog Bandit, and how he is angry with his parents for getting a divorce. In the end of the story, he ends up making a friend, makes an alarm for his lunch box, and finds closure with that fact that his parents are divorced and he will not get to see his dad and Bandit that often.

Even though Dear Mr. Henshaw is a young adult novel, there are very detailed black and white illustrations every couple of pages to help the readers picture what Leigh is writing about in his letters to Mr. Henshaw. This is another strong connection between the three books, I have chosen, they all have strong illustrations that help tell the stories just as much as the letters that are written on the pages.

The next book I choose to put in my triptych was Dear Mrs. LaRue: Letters from Obedience School, this book is a very funny picture book about Mrs. LaRue’s dog, Ike, that is writing letters to her from obedience school. This book has a large number of great vocabulary words and can be a great read-aloud book for all elementary students. The illustrations in Dear Mrs. LaRue: Letters from Obedience School also play a large role in the story, because there are both black and white pictures on each page, Ike’s letters are telling Mrs. LaRue how obedience school is like jail and he is miserable, but the colored pictures tell the real story about obedience school and how Ike is really laying out in the sun sipping lemonade. As the story moves on Ike runs away from obedience school and is writing to Mrs. LaRue while he is “on the run”. In the end Ike makes it back home just in time to save Mrs. LaRue from getting hit by a truck and she forgets about all the bad things he did in the first place and welcomes him back home with open arms. For students that enjoy Ike the dog there is a whole LaRue series of books about all Ike’s exciting adventures!

The last book that I have chosen for my triptych that follows the letter writing format is The Gardener, which is a picture book for 4-8 year olds. The Gardener focuses around a young girl named Lydia Grace Finch who lived around the time of the great depression. The book starts out with Lydia writing to her Uncle Jim in the city about her coming to visit him while her parents looked for work back home. Once Lydia got to the city she wrote all of her letters back home to her Mama, Papa, and Grandma about her Uncle Jim’s bakery and all the friends she has made. She also talks about how she can never make Uncle Jim smile. She ends up fixing this problem by planting flowers all around the bakery building: in the window boxes, on the fire escape, and even on the roof. This causes business to grow for Uncle Jim and she even gets him to smile. At the end of the story Lydia’s parents find work and she gets to go back to the country and plant flowers once again with her Grandma. This is a great example of how one person really can make a difference. The Gardener also has outstanding illustrations and is a Caldecott Honor Book.

I decided to focus on the letter writing format books, because I have always found it to be a very interesting way for an author to write a story. I also showed with this triptych that serious, historical, and funny topics can be covered with books using the letter format. As well with this triptych, I showed picture books and chapter books can be written in this way. I have worked with struggling readers in the past and I have had success with introducing them to letter style novels, because in normal chapter books, they have to struggle through the chapters with letter formatted books, they tend to read them faster because they think of each letter as a “chapter” and are proud of how fast they can make it through a “chapter”, and continue to read the book instead of getting frustrated and giving up. I enjoyed reading several books in this format to pick my favorite three for this triptych and I think it’s a great book format for teachers to introduce in their classrooms; either to help struggling readers, to introduce the process of letter writing, or just as new fun and exciting books to read!