Title: Love That Dog
Author: Sharon Creech
Illustrator (Cover Artist): William Steig
Genre: Youth Fiction
Subgenre: Realistic/Poetic Fiction
Themes: classroom involvement, free writing in a journal, relationship with your dog, looking up to someone, getting excited to meet someone
Primary and Secondary Characters: Jack, Miss Stretchberry, Sky (the yellow dog), Mr. Walter Dean Meyers
Awards: Volunteer State Book Award 2003-2004 (Tennessee), 53rd Annual Christopher Award Winner
Date of Publication: 2001
Publishing Company: Scholastic, Inc.
Summary:
Love That Dog by Sharon Creech is a novel expressing the views of Jack, a boy that is not so fond of writing poetry. This book is written in free verse and is told from a diary point of view. Jack writes in his journal of what he thinks about writing poems and expresses how he feels personally about that topic. One entry discusses his yellow dog, Sky. Sky is a dog that Jack used to have and he makes lots of references of what him and Sky did together. He even wrote a concrete poem describing what his dog looked like and his characteristics. Jack also furthers his interest within poems and reads a poem by Mr. Walter Dean Meyers. The poem that he is interested in is called, Love That Boy. Jack uses this poem to relate what he liked so much about his late dog, Sky. Jack eventually wishes to write Mr. Meyers a letter and has the teacher send it off to him. As Jack un-patiently awaits for a response to his letter, he writes more poems that builds up his anxiety of receiving a response. Finally, he gets the honor to actually meet Mr. Meyers, with Mr. Meyers visiting not only his school, but his class in particular. Jack is completely overjoyed and writes Mr. Meyers a thank-you poem.
How it will be used in the classroom:
I feel that this book is a great opportunity for my students to be able to express themselves and know that they too, can have a journal and/or diary that they can escape in and write as much as they want, whenever they want. Students can take from this too, that there are different ways in free writing and this helps give a visualization of what free writing is. It's a great way to get children engaged with free writing for their own therapy. I would recommend this book for students in grades 3-5.
I feel that this book is a great opportunity for my students to be able to express themselves and know that they too, can have a journal and/or diary that they can escape in and write as much as they want, whenever they want. Students can take from this too, that there are different ways in free writing and this helps give a visualization of what free writing is. It's a great way to get children engaged with free writing for their own therapy. I would recommend this book for students in grades 3-5.
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