Book post: Love That Dog

Book cover from Sharon Creech

Creech, S. (2001). Love that dog. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

*ALA Notable Children's Book*

Love That Dog is about a young boy, Jack, learning to develop his voice through writing poetry.  He begins his class journal stating that poetry is for girls, but then realizes through the encouragement of his teacher that he is actually good at writing poetry.  The book is written entirely in poems, which means the reader is reading poetry and a novel at the same time.  This would be a great book for teaching format and line breaks for poems, as well as how to emulate types of poems.  Jack writes a poem inspired by his favorite poem, Walter Dean Myers' "Love That Boy," which I loved because I am a fan of Myers as well.  Jack is a wonderful character who shares and learns a lot about himself through his poetry.