Creech, Sharon. 2001. Love That Dog.
I can't believe I never knew about this little book. It is so very, very good. It's a book in verse--a verse novel. The narrator, Jack, is in English class. His teacher, Miss Stretchberry, requires them to write. This *appears* to be a journal-assignment. But I could be wrong there, but these poetic entries are written by Jack and read regularly by his teacher...so draw your own conclusions. Jack is your typical boy--he doesn't like reading poetry, analyzing poetry, or writing poetry. In that way, this book becomes very humorous as he slowly but surely starts to see life a little differently. As he becomes a poet himself.
There are SO MANY things I loved about this one...Jack's voice, Jack's poems, the inclusion of the poems that Miss Stretchberry's class studied in the first place, the fact that Jack wrote a fan letter to Walter Dean Myers, that the book included an author visiting a school, the running gag that with each new poem/poet studied that Jack was curious to know if they were alive or not, the fact that Jack used poetry to help heal his brokeness after his dog's death...I could go on and on. This one won't take you long to read...and it is so worth it!!
© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
2 comments:
We named our dog Skye after the dog in the book. It's a great book and would make a good read aloud.
This is one of my favorites! At the 2007 TLA conference, I attended a Reader's Theater presented by Avi, Sharon Creech, Walter Dean Myers, and Sarah Weeks. They performed an abridged version of this, and it was amazing! Naturally, Myers played an important role in the performance!
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