I am a "mentor" for the awesome online program In2Books, which means I am basically a book pen pal for a kid in elementary school. The student will pick from a list of books for a book that we will both read and write to each other about. My penpal's first pick for the year was Dear Mr. Henshaw. I'm finding it is not only hard to rate but also hard to review a book written for a 5th grader. For the most part, the book held my attention. I liked the way it progressed, starting out with a young boy writing a letter filled with spelling mistakes to his favorite author and ending as a older kid writing in a diary. However, the things he wrote about were awfully depressing, as he was a young kid dealing with the divorce of his parents, and it did get a little boring at times. Overall, I think it is a good book for the age group that it is meant for.