Last Christmas
Leigh is waiting for a letter from his dad, who doesn’t live with them anymore. It is Christmas time and he hopes that dad will sent him not only a letter, but a present also, and maybe Leigh's dad will even come to see his mother and him. But there still no package from dad, and Leigh keeps thinking about last Christmas when they lived in a mobile home before his father bought the tractor: “Mom cooked a turkey and a nice dinner. We had a Christmas tree about two feet high became there wasn't room for a big one. At dinner Dad remarked that when he was driving along, he often saw one shoe lying on the highway. He always wondered how it got there and what happened to its mate. Mom said one shoe sounded sad, like a country western song. While we ate our mince pie we all tried to think up songs about lost shoes. I'll never forget them.” This image illustrates the nostalgia of the little boy, who wants his parents to be together, especially at Christmas, the most magic time of the year.
Ways to Amuse a Dog
Ways to Amuse a Dog is favorite Leigh’s book. He has been reading it many times and still this story fascinates him. This book was the evidence of his growing up in some aspect, because, as the boy wrote to the author: “It is the first thick book with chapters that I have read”. The story is about the boy's father who said city dogs were bored so Joe (his son) could not keep the dog unless he could think up seven ways to amuse it. Leigh also has a dog, so this topic is interesting for him. He even gave a book report about The Ways to Amuse a Dog and wrote about that to Mr. Henshaw. The boy mentions this book very often in his letters and in his diary, so this imagery shoves an importance of the book for a little boy and his growing up and developing of his character and even attitude to life.
Things That Are Bothersome
Leigh is not a regular boy. He likes to write very much, although he doesn’t even notice it; he doesn’t have friends, but he doesn’t care about that too much. There are more important things that bother him, he wrote about them in his letter to Mr. Henshaw: “I guess I'm bothered by a lot of things. I am bothered when someone steals something out of my lunch bag. I don't know enough about the people in the school to know what to suspect. I am bothered about little kids with runny noses. I don't mean I am fussy or anything like that I don't know why. I am just bothered.” And these are just some of the bothering things. In this imagery, masterfully seasoned with irony, we can find out more about the boy, his attitude to the world and what is going on in his head.
A Day on Dad’s Rig
A Day on Dad’s Rig is the short story by Leigh, written for the Young Writers' Yearbook, where he was telling about the time he rode with his father when he was trucking the load of grapes down Highway 152 through Pacheco pass to a winery: “I put in things like the signs that said STEEP GRADE, TRUCKS USE LOW GEAR and how Dad down-shifted and how skillful he was handling a long, heavy load on the curves”. Although his story didn’t won, he wasn’t so much upset about this he was even proud of himself when at the meeting with the famous author his story was mentioned and praised: “I happened to like A Day on Dad's Rig because it was written by a boy who wrote honestly about something he knew and had strong feelings about. You made me feel what it was like to ride down a steep grade with crates of grapes behind me.” This imagery expresses the feeling of achievement and satisfaction with the results of his work, because Leigh understood, that the victory itself is not an achievement, the real success is when the process of creating gives you enjoyment.
