Love That Dog

Title: Love That Dog

Author: Sharon Creech

Publisher: HarperCollins

Date: 2001

Number of pages: 128

Reading level: Ages 9-12

Genre: Poetry

Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech's Love That Dog, turns out to be a witty, sweet, original short novel written in free verse. It introduces us to a straight-talking boy who discovers the powers and pleasures of poetry. Jack hated poetry and he thought that only girls write it, until his teacher, Ms. Stretchberry, inspires him to read poetry including the work of Walter Dean Myers, who wrote a poem that touches his heart. As Jack attempts to read and write poetry, he realizes he does have something to say, and that others will want to hear what it is. He starts to see the light. Poetry is not so bad, it's not just for girls, and it's not even that hard to write. Jack is also instrumental in getting Mr. Myers himself to come to his school to talk about his poem. After this visit, Jack is forever changed. He becomes more and more discerning as the days go by, as he begins to find his own voice through his own poetry and through that of others. His favorite poem of all is a short, rhythmic one by Walter Dean Myers called "Love That Boy". The words completely captivated Jack , reminding him of the loving way his dad calls him in the morning and of the way he used to call his yellow dog, Sky. Jack's reverence for the poem ultimately leads to meeting the poet himself, an experience he will never forget.

My Reaction:  This was different from any other novel I have ever read.  The book was wrote in a format of a journal which matched the theme of the story.  It was not broken up into chapters it was a daily journal that some days Jack who is the main character wrote very little and other days a couple of pages. The story showed how children, particularly boys, don’t like poetry and think it’s not for them.  Jack clearly did not like poetry before his teacher pushed it on to him. He actually wrote poems that he thought where horrible and the teacher wanted to put them on the board.  He would never allow the teacher to put his name with the poem because he thought they where bad.  By putting the poetry on the board the teacher showed that sometimes you have to push a student to do something even if they don't want too.  This teacher obviously knew that Jack had and amazing talent of writing poetry.  She also knew that it was her job to make sure that this talent didn’t go undetected. I really did enjoy the reading and the style it was written in.

Potential Problems: The story exhibits a lot of gender stereotyping, and does not correctly analyze all of the traits. Young children reading this book may infer that it is OK to place individuals in a specific gender role.

My recommendation: As a future teacher, I cannot think of a more valuable tool for modeling how to write poetry, a response journal, and elements of a story. The story evolves in a series of short, pithy poems written by Jake as he responds to his teacher's attempts to introduce a love of poetry and elicit more information in his responses. I think it will be a great asset inside upper elementary and middle school classrooms and can't wait to use it in my future classes as well!