Love That Dog is a wonderful and charming children’s novel featuring the poems of a student named Jack, who is in Miss Stretchberry’s class, Room 105.
He starts out reluctantly.
I don’t want to
because boys
don’t write poetry.Girls do.
But as this first classroom assignment makes clear, Jack is a poet. He can’t help himself. As do so many children, he thinks in metaphors. Words and rhythms give him joy.
Before long, Jack is engaging in a poetic dialogue with Miss Stretchberry about her lessons:
I liked that poem
we read today
about street music
in the city.My street is not
in the middle
of the city
so it doesn’t have
that LOUD music
of horns and trucks
clash
flash
screech.
Love That Dog, a 2001 book by Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech, is about Jack’s awakening to his love for poetry, poetry’s possibilities, and his knack for it. Written for kids 8-12 (though younger children could no doubt appreciate it), Love That Dog accomplishes so much.
It introduces children to poetry and seeks to instill a love for it, at the same time as it celebrates and IS poetry. It does all of this through Jack’s mostly short poems, the overarching story itself, and the use of classic poems such as William Carlos Williams’ The Red Wheelbarrow. The poet Walter Dean Myers figures prominently as well, as inspiration and an actual character.
Love That Dog also celebrates good teachers, and although Miss Stretchberry never appears per se, you find yourself loving the heck out of her for being so creative as a teacher and for her light touch with Jack, who has to navigate his own way into this exciting new world.
He also has to express and overcome various fears: of being laughed at by his peers; of offending adults as he emulates them; and of possibly being let down by them when he asks for their participation.
Eventually, Miss Stretchberry’s gentle prodding allows Jack to confront painful past losses. The reader understands that Jack is deeply loved and nurtured and is able to absorb the ultimate cost of loving.
At its heart, this book is about love, and that is what makes it profoundly moving.
Kids today are embracing poetry and advancing it as a performance art. If you seek to introduce your young one to the miracles they can create with words, you can’t do better than to start with this small miracle of a book by Sharon Creech.
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