Love That Dog

Love That Dog

by Sharon Creech

Love That Dog is a very fun and unique children's novel because it is written from the perspective of a young student named Jack who is writing poetry for a class. While the whole book is written poems it is actually a novel as the reader begins to grow with Jack as he grows with the help of his teacher, dog, and poetry. I enjoyed the beginning because it started out with:

"September 13

I don't want to

because boys

don't write poetry"

Creech includes this interesting start to her novel which grabs the reader's attention. The novel continues on from the perspective of young Jack as he tries to figure out what poetry exactly is. He questions whether it is categorized by the format or wording or even the vagueness. As a future teacher I found this whole book very interesting because we see the side of what one student is thinking. While a teacher may assign students to simply write a poem, this novel reminds us that students may have many other things on their mind about poetry in general. I also liked the format of this book because it follows Jack throughout the whole year as he continues to grow and enjoy poetry as he finds his inspiration in Mr. Walter Dean Myers. This lapse in time is unusual for novel because it takes place over a long period of time, but the book still reads very quickly. While reading the book I was very curious about what poem Jack wrote that was inspired by Mr. Walter Dean Myers so I was very surprised and excited when it was included as the last line of the novel. I was also glad that the in the back of the novel Creech included some of the poems that were discussed throughout the book because it was nice to see what exactly Jack was reading. I am torn about whether I wish Creech should have said from the front that the poems were there in the back so the readers could refer to them as they came up in the book. On one hand this would tell the readers more about why Jack was writing poems or was confused, but it may also give the readers too much. I have never really enjoyed reading poetry or books of poetry in my life, but then again I have never seen them complied into a novel like this wonderful book was. Overall I really loved reading this book and I would think many others of all ages would too.

Intended Age 8-12