Love That Dog By: Sharon Creech

Genre: Poetry

Publisher: HarperCollins

Copyright Date: 2001

Number of Pages: 86

Reading Level: 7-11

Summary:

This book is written from the perspective of Jack, a little boy in Mrs. Stretchberry's class. It is written as if it comes out of a writing journal that Mrs. Stretchberry reads and makes comments on, but all you can see is what Jack writes. They are starting a unit on poetry and at first Jack refuses to do it because, after all, boys don't write poetry, girls do. Over a few days in their poetry unit Mrs. Stretchberry convinces Jack to write a poem. He writes one about a blue car. She asks him to expand about the blue car but he doesn't want to. In class, they read a few poems by famous poets and Jack is amazed to see that some poems don't seem like poems. He thinks that

to be a poem it just has to have

short lines

that break up

the sentences.

Over the course of his writing, he begins to write poetry without realizing it. Every once in a while Mrs. Stretchberry asks if she can type up what he said about _______ and put it on the bulletin board. For a while he only lets her if she doesn't put his name on it. Finally he lets her, but some of his poems he has her edit because they might be too sad for his classmates. He is inspired by the poem Love That Boy by Walter Dean Meyers and he writes a poem "inspired by Walter Dean Meyers" called Love That Dog, and it is about his dog, Sky. Once his teacher gets him to talk more about his dog, he writes some beautiful poems about a dog he had that got hit by a car. The first poem that he wrote about a blue car racing down the street splattered with mud...which, we find out later, is the car that hit his dog sky.

He is influenced by many poets but Mr. Walter Dean Meyers is still his favorite. He asks his teacher if someone like Mr. Walter Dean Meyers would be able to come to their school and read poems to him. She convinces him to write to Mr. Meyers to see if he could come to his school. He doesn't think that Mr. Meyers will answer, but he does, and he comes and visits Jack's class and reads some of his poems to them. Jack is thrilled and can't get over Mr. Walter Dean Meyers and how good his voice sounds when he reads to them.

So, over the course of the book, Jack goes from not liking poetry to being the reason a famous poet comes to his classroom.

Love That Dog

(Inspired by Walter Dean Meyers)

By Jack:

Love that dog,

like a bird loves to fly

I said I love that dog

like a bird loves to fly

Love to call him in the morning

love to call him

"Hey there, Sky!"

Who would benefit from reading this book/who would I recommend this book to?

I would recommend this book to anyone. I think that it is a great example of what poetry is and how it can change lives just by reading it. Kids would benefit from reading this book because they can appreciate the poems that Jack writes. Adults would benefit just as much from reading this book because Jack is an extremely lovable character and that makes it easy to read.

What problems/conflicts could this book potentially cause?

None whatsoever.

My Reaction:

My English teacher read this book to my class once and I fell in love with it. I think that this is the sweetest book. It shows how much passion children have for what they are learning even if they don't know it. It also shows that kids remember the bad things that happen in their lives just as much as adults do. At first Jack is unwilling to talk about his dog, but by the end he is writing beautiful poetry about him. The voice in this book is superb and you really feel like you are reading a kid's journal. I can picture a little boy named jack writing what he is thinking, not even knowing that what is coming out can be poetry.