Love that Dog by Sharon Creech

Love That Dog, a great title for a wonderful book. I really enjoyed this book because it was such an easy read and it introduced a somewhat hard topic for most, poetry. There were so many good parts of this book. I loved how at the beginning the little boy said that he didn't want to write poetry because it was a "girl's" thing but by the end he wasn't afraid to put his name on his poems.

I enjoyed reading all of his poems that he read and all of the ones that he made up, some that I thought were very interesting and ones that I would never have even been able to come up with. I especially enjoyed the "Sky" poem about his dog and how he was concerned that it may make some people sad. He kept thinking that he wasn't writing poems because they didn't rhyme and they didn't look like poems. His uncle even justifies this later when telling him that he wasn't really writing poems because they weren't long enough and the fact that they didn't rhyme. I loved this part because then the little boy began to write full page texts which both him and I felt were really hard to comprehend. I loved how he talked about punctuation because I think a lot of kids feel hesitant about that. I know I did when I was younger and still do at times now.

I also thought that it was so cute that he wanted Mr. Walter Dean Myers to come to the class so badly and was really crushed when he thought that it might take a long time for him to get back to them. The letters that he wrote them were so funny to read but so real at the same time.

I just thought there were so many good stories in this short book and I liked how it had all of the poems that he read in class at the end. It really helped everything be brought together. And when reading the excerpt from her new book Hate That Cat, I cannot wait to read that one also. I will definately have these stories in my classroom if I teach third grade and above and bring them out when talking about poetry.