Last month, I had the opportunity to pitch a middle-grade verse novel to an editor, and as these things sometimes happen, the pitch turned into a conversation. We spoke about One and The Weight of Water (I prefer the first; the editor I was talking to prefers the second). I had not yet read Clap When You Land, or I would have mentioned it. And then she asked me if I had read Love That Dog. I hadn’t, but I thought I’d see if I could find it. I did–and I loved it!
The book begins in a surprising way.
I read on.
I was just on page three or four of the book, and I was already laughing. I remember my reaction to William Carlos Williams’s ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’. And the protagonist Jack has the same reaction! Why does so much depend on a little red wheelbarrow? What? What does the poem even mean?
And slowly, from lightheartedness to emotion, we move with Jack, and understand just how different poetry is to different people. Poetry isn’t just about line breaks. It isn’t only about depth of emotion. It can be funny or serious, lovely or silly.
And Love That Dog, in its simple, innocent way, explores it all. Jack moves from one poem to another – poems he loves and poems he cannot understand. And he begins to write poetry, even though the book opens with him declaring that boys don’t write poetry; girls do. Poetry, he realises, can be anything you want it to be. And maybe, just maybe, he can write poetry that makes him proud.
| Title | Love That Dog |
| Author | Sharon Creech |
| Tags | Early Middle-Grade, Verse Novel |
| Rating (out of 5) | 4 |
| Age-group | 9+ |
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