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    Strider
    Strider
    Strider
    Ebook129 pages1 hour

    Strider

    By Beverly Cleary and Paul O. Zelinsky

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    This sequel to Beverly Cleary's beloved Newbery Medal-winning classic, Dear Mr. Henshaw, stars Strider, a dog who loves to run.

    Can a stray dog change the life of a teenage boy? It looks as if Strider can.

    He's a dog that loves to run; because of Strider, Leigh Botts finds himself running—well enough to join the school track team. Strider changes Leigh on the inside, too, as he finally begins to accept his parents' divorce and gets to know a redheaded girl he's been admiring.

    With Strider's help, Leigh finds that the future he once hated to be asked about now holds something he never expected: hope.

    Strider is a winning dog adventure for kids ages 6-12. It can be read alongside the beloved classic Dear Mr. Henshaw or on its own.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 6, 2009
    ISBN9780061972423
    Author

    Beverly Cleary

    Beverly Cleary is one of America's most beloved authors. As a child, she struggled with reading and writing. But by third grade, after spending much time in her public library in Portland, Oregon, she found her skills had greatly improved. Before long, her school librarian was saying that she should write children's books when she grew up. Instead she became a librarian. When a young boy asked her, ""Where are the books about kids like us?"" she remembered her teacher's encouragement and was inspired to write the books she'd longed to read but couldn't find when she was younger. She based her funny stories on her own neighborhood experiences and the sort of children she knew. And so, the Klickitat Street gang was born! Mrs. Cleary's books have earned her many prestigious awards, including the American Library Association's Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, presented to her in recognition of her lasting contribution to children's literature. Dear Mr. Henshaw won the Newbery Medal, and Ramona Quimby, Age 8 and Ramona and Her Father have been named Newbery Honor Books. Her characters, including Beezus and Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins, and Ralph, the motorcycle-riding mouse, have delighted children for generations.

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    Reviews for Strider

    4/5

    20 ratings7 reviews

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    • 3/5
      While I did enjoy this book, I felt that "Dear Mr. Henshaw" (the first book in the series) was a stronger book with a very different thematic feel to it. I was expecting somewhat similar in feel and this was definitely not that. It was a more watered down version of what I was expecting based on the feeling of maturity in the other one.
    • 4/5
      This cute little sequel to Dear Mr. Henshaw is just as good as the original book. If you haven't read the first one, it stands very nicely by itself. Both books speak poignantly about how divorce, in this case an absent father, can affect a child. In this book the main character, Leigh, two years older, is more comfortable with the way things are, and is well on the way in learning to accept his parents as they are and still managing to be all boy.
    • 3/5
      I was amazing to find there was more to Leigh's story! I had the horrors that it would end up being a dead dog story, but this was a sweet coming of age tale of a boy fighting free of his feckless father, and negotiating friendships.
    • 4/5
      "Strider" is a worthy sequel to the excellent "Dear Mr. Henshaw".Leigh is two years older, and handling life with his divorced mother better than when he was only 12. While on the beach with his best friend, Barry, they come across a dog that is sitting there, looking as if he's lost his best friend.Apparently the dog has been abandoned, and the boys decide to adopt "Strider", with join custody.But more is happening to Leigh than just a new dog: his father is still trying to get back with his ex-wife, Leigh's mother, who is not interested, his English teacher is making him crazy, and there's a new boy who takes issue with Leigh's new shirt.This is not just a "feel good" story, but a story about adolescence and how one boy handles the changes in his life. I was really impressed with how Ms. Cleary handled an older subject (Leigh is 14) and the serious subjects of divorce and friendship.Highly recommended, but read "Dear Mr. Henshaw" first.
    • 3/5
      The chapter book "Strider" is a good book. The book uses the same character from the book, "Dear Mr. Henshaw." Leigh and his mother now live apartments, where Leigh and his friend Barry find a dog. They named the dog Stider. Since the both found the dog together they decided to have joint custody. This causes tension between the boys because Leight does not want Barry to have his time with Strider. Leigh uses Strider to fill other voids that he has in his life. Overall I felt as though this was a good story and a great addition to any teachers library.
    • 5/5
      I haven’t read Dear Mr. Henshaw, but I’ve read this one over and over again. Teaching Strider to read makes me smile every time. Leigh’s growth, tenacity, and quiet love for his friends, his dog, and his parents is comfort food.
    • 2/5
      Leigh (boy) Botts and his friend Barry acquire a dog, of which they assume joint custody. Leigh loves Strider, as they name him. He also loves running and joins the school track team.Does this story line sound fascinating to you? Because there really isn't much more to this book than that. There are the usual parental troubles, teacher troubles and spats with friends, but all in all, this tale was exceedingly dull. I have thoroughly enjoyed a number of Beverly Cleary's books, but this one was weak.

    Book preview

    Strider - Beverly Cleary

    From the Diary of Leigh Botts

    June 6

    This afternoon, as Mom was leaving for work at the hospital, she said for the millionth time, Leigh, please clean up your room. There is no excuse for such a mess. And don’t forget the junk under your bed.

    I said, Mom, you’re nagging. I’m going to Barry’s house.

    She plunked a kiss on my hair and said, Room first, Barry second. Besides, where would the world be without nagging mothers? Everything would go to pieces.

    Maybe she’s right. Things are pretty deep in my room. I hauled all the rubbish out from under my bed. In the midst of all the old socks, school papers, models that have fallen apart, paperback books (one library book—oops!), and other stuff, I found the diary I kept a couple of years ago when I was a mixed-up kid in the sixth grade. Mom had just divorced Dad and moved with me to Pacific Grove, better known as P.G., where I was a new kid in school, which wasn’t easy.

    I sat there on the floor reading my diary, and when I finished, I continued to sit there. What had changed?

    Dad still drives his tractor-trailer rig, lives mostly on the road, and is late with his child support checks or forgets them. I don’t often see him, but I don’t get as angry about this as I did in the sixth grade. I no longer feel like crying, but I still hurt when he doesn’t telephone when he said he would. Whenever I see a big rig, excitement shoots through me until I see Dad isn’t the driver. I wish—oh well, forget it.

    Mom has finished her vocational nurse course and works at the hospital from three to eleven because that shift pays more than the daytime shift. Mornings she studies to become a registered nurse so she can earn more money. We still live in what our landlady called our charming garden cottage but I call a shack. Mom is looking for an apartment, but so far no luck.

    Twice a week I mop the floor at Catering by Katy, where Mom used to work before she got her license. Katy gives me good things to eat. I like earning my own spending money, but I feel I could use the squares of Katy’s linoleum for a checkerboard in my sleep.

    Mom, who used to think TV was one of the greatest evils of the universe, finally had our set repaired because my grades were good and she no longer felt TV would rot my brain and leave me twiddling my shoelaces. At first I watched everything until I got bored and cut back to news and animal programs. Then I began to feel that every lion on the Serengeti must have his own personal hairdresser. That left the news, which sometimes worries me. If I see a truck accident with the tractor hanging over the edge of a bridge, or tons of tomatoes spilled on a freeway, I can hardly breathe until I see the driver isn’t Dad.

    One part of my diary made me smile, the part about wanting to be a famous author like Boyd Henshaw someday. Maybe I do, maybe I don’t, but I’m glad that when I wrote to him, he said I should keep a diary.

    I worry about what I’m going to do with my life, and so does Mom. Dad is probably too busy worrying about meeting his deadline with a trailer load of lettuce before it rots to even think of me. Or maybe he is wasting his time playing video games at some truck stop.

    Until the last sentence, I enjoyed writing this. Maybe I’ll go back to writing in composition books, but not every day, just once in a while, like now, when I feel like writing something.

    The gas station next door has stopped ping-pinging, which means it’s after ten o’clock. Mom gets home about eleven-thirty, and my room is still a mess. No problem. Except for books and my diary, I’ll dump everything in the trash.

    I just remembered. I forgot about Barry.

    June 7

    Today I have something important to write about! The summer fog was so low the whole world seemed to drip. Mom went to class, and our shack was so lonely, I climbed the hill to see Barry. I like to go to his big old house, built on a slope so that it has a view of the bay when the fog lifts. Everything in the house is shabby and comfortable. There is a smell of good things cooking. Barry’s stepmother, Mrs. Brinkerhoff, is plump, but she doesn’t worry about it the way Mom’s friends worry about gaining one teeny ounce.

    Barry’s house is full of cats, hamsters in cages, and little sisters. I once saw a tortoise under the couch, but I have never seen it again. Sometimes a grandmother is there. She knits sweaters out of beautiful soft yarns in wild designs she makes up as she goes along. Barry says she sells them to an expensive boutique for a lot of money. Watching her needles move so quickly in and out of beautiful yarns fascinates me.

    The basic Brinkerhoffs are the parents, Barry, and five little sisters. Two girls belong to Barry’s father, two to his stepmother, and the little one, who crawls and likes to play peekaboo around corners, belongs to both parents. Sometimes the girls seem like more than five because their friends come over, and they all dress up in old clothes Mrs. Brinkerhoff keeps in a big box.

    This morning a bunch of girls were kneeling on chairs around the kitchen table, popping corn in the electric corn popper. When they dumped it out in a bowl, Barry and I reached for some.

    The girls tried to slap our hands away. This isn’t for eating, one of them said. This is for shrinking.

    That stopped us. Whoever heard of shrinking popcorn?

    The girls were busy dropping perfectly good popcorn into a bowl of water, one piece at a time, to watch it shrink until nobody would eat it except maybe a hamster.

    That’s a stupid thing to do, Barry told the girls.

    It is not, said the oldest sister. Betsy I think is her name. We are performing a scientific experiment to prove that popcorn has memory. Drop it in water, and it remembers it is supposed to be little and hard instead of big and fluffy.

    Barry and I helped ourselves to more popcorn. You’re being mean to popcorn, said one of the girls, which made me wonder what popcorn remembered when I chewed it.

    Barry and I went to his room

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