Love That Dog, by Sharon Creech

Love That Dog, a Novel. By Sharon Creech. ISBN # 0-06-440959-7

This is a novel written in free verse poetry in which Jack, a member of Miss Stretchberry’s English class, is introduced to poetry. In a spare fashion, Creech writes about Jack’s growth considering the understanding and joy of poetry. In the beginning of the story, Jack says that poetry is for girls. Every so slowly, Jack begins to embrace poetry as the great poets introduce him to some of the famous poems. Jack soon challenges his own naiveté with poetry, and tries to write his own. True, his poems are directly modeled after what he is reading, but at the same time he stops criticizes the poets and poems, and begins to enjoy the poetry. Jack loves the poetry of Walter Dean Myers and invites him to his class.

Sharon Creech knows her poetry and she nicely interjects some great poems in this text. For example, Jack is exposed to “The Red Wheelbarrow, by William Carlos Williams and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost among others.

This is a cute little book that doesn’t deal with life or death issues but just the love of poetry.