Love That Dog

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech is a story about a boy named Jack who discovers his talent and interest in poetry while learning about poems in his class. The novel is written in stanzas in a conversational tone, which allows the reader to really feel like they are apart of Jack's journey of being exposed to different types of poems and writers. Jack first begins this story by showing little interest in poems after his teacher asks students to write their own. Slowly, Jack not only becomes inspired by poetry authors to write his own poems about his life, but learns to take pride and ownership of his work that gave him a voice. This book would be excellent to use as an intro to a poetry unit to help ease students into the topic or to help open students' minds to give poetry a chance. Many students are weary about the subject of poetry and this book allows students to see that inspiration can come from unexpected places. It should also work as a motif to carry throughout your classroom all year because of it's unique and subtle stand on gender roles and stereotypes. Personally when I read this book it reminded me of myself; I became enthralled with "making words into pictures" and typing them up because it really made it seem like my words were real poetry when I was younger. And I will admit, I may have shed a tear at Jack's final poem about Sky.

Creech, S. (2001). Love that dog. New York: Harper Collins.