Poetry Review: Verse Novel

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech
Jacket art by William Steig







Bibliographic Citation: Creech, Sharon. Love That Dog. New York : Harper Trophy. 2003.
ISBN-13: 978-0-06440-959-9

Review: Mrs. Creech shares the heart-warming story of Jack, a shy writer, and how his teacher uses poetry to help him express his feelings about the dog he lost.  The journal kept by Jack shows us his reluctance, excitement and energy when he discovers the amazing world of poetry.  Through this story, you feel the emotional connection to Jack as he writes about the loss of his pet, the strong voice of this main character and the healing process that keeping this journal and writing poems about his pet provides for this character.

April 26

Sometimes
when you are trying
not to think about something
it keeps popping back
into your head
you can't help it
you think about it
and
think about it
and
think about it
until your brain
feels like
a squashed pea.

Introduction to Share: This book is an excellent way to demonstrate voice in writing.  By having students keep a writing journal that they share with only their teacher, they are able to express feelings, thoughts, emotions in any form they feel comfortable with. The teacher can give them encouragement to venture into more ideas without embarrassment by sharing ideas in just the journal. The many poems written in this book are perfect jump off points to writing personal poetry about the same concept, idea, or story.  On page 37 and example shared by Miss Stretchberry in the back of the book, students could use these concrete poems as examples to write their own concrete poem.