Here's a preview of the book
Love That Dog
by Sharon Creech
Room 105-Miss Stretchberry
September 13
I don't want to because boys don't write poetry.
Girls do.
September 21
I tried. Can't do it. Brain's empty.
September 27
I don't understand the poem about the red wheelbarrow and the white chickens and why so much depends upon them.
If that is a poem about the red wheelbarrow and the white chickens then any words can be a poem. You've just got to make short lines.
October 4
Do you promise not to read it out loud? Do you promise not to put it on the board?
Okay, here it is, but I don't like it.
So much depends upon a blue car splattered with mud speeding down the road.
October 10
What do you mean' Why does so much depend upon a blue car?
You didn't say before that I had to tell why.
The wheelbarrow guy didn't tell why.
October 17
What was up with the snowy woods poem you read today?
Why doesn't the person just keep going if he's got so many miles to go before he sleeps?
And why do I have to tell more about the blue car splattered with mud speeding down the road?
I don't want to write about that blue car that had miles to go before it slept, so many miles to go in such a hurry.
October 24
I am sorry to say I did not really understand the tiger tiger burning bright poem but at least it sounded good in my ears.
Here is the blue car with tiger sounds:
Blue car, blue car, shining bright in the darkness of the night: who could see you speeding by like a comet in the sky?
I could see you in the night, blue car, blue car, shining bright. I could see you speeding by like a comet in the sky.
Some of the tiger sounds are still in my ears like drums beat-beat-beating.
October 31
Yes you can put the two blue-car poems on the board but only if you don't put my name on them.
November 6
They look nice typed up like that on blue paper on a yellow board.
(But still don't tell anyone who wrote them, okay?)
(And what does anonymous mean? Is it good?)
November 9
I don't have any pets so I can't write about one and especially I can't write a POEM about one.
November 15
Yes, I used to have a pet. I don't want to write about it.
You're going to ask me Why not? Right?
November 22
Pretend I still have that pet?
Can't I make up a pet' a different one? Like a tiger? Or a hamster? A goldfish? Turtle? Snail? Worm? Flea?
November 29
I liked those small poems we read today.
When they're small like that you can read a whole bunch in a short time and then in your head are all the pictures of all the small things from all the small poems.
I liked how the kitten leaped in the cat poem and how you could see the long head of the horse in the horse poem and especially I liked the dog in the dog poem because that's just how my yellow dog used to lie down, with his tongue all limp and his chin between his paws and how he'd sometimes chomp at a fly and then sleep in his loose skin, just like that poet, Miss Valerie Worth, says, in her small dog poem.
December 4
Why do you want to type up what I wrote about reading the small poems?
It's not a poem. Is it?
(Copyright by Sharon Creech)
Return to the page of book previews.