Wednesday, June 12, 2013

MG Review: Love That Dog & Hate That Cat by Sharon Creech


Title: Love That Dog / Hate That Cat
Author: Sharon Creech
# Of Pages: 128/148
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: April 8, 2008/ September 23, 2008
Source: Library
Level: Middle Grade
Rating: 2 Hearts / 3 Hearts


Synopsis
(From Amazon)

Love That Dog-
Jack
Room 105 - -Miss Stretchberry
September 13

I don't want to
because boys
don't write poetry.
Girls do

But before he knows it Jack is creating his own poetry and a wonderful story emerges as he becomes interested in this thing that 'girls do'! Not only is Jack inspired to write to his favourite poet, but the poet agrees to visit, and Jack discovers how much more there is to poetry behind the words on the page. A lovely, loving and very impressive novel that defies definition.

Hate That Cat-
Jack

Room 204—Miss Stretchberry

February 25

Today the fat black cat

up in the tree by the bus stop

dropped a nut on my head

thunk

and when I yelled at it
that fat black cat said

Murr-mee-urrr

in a 

nasty

spiteful

way.
I hate that cat.

This is the story of 
Jack
words
sounds
silence
teacher
and cat.


My Verdict

There are two types of middle grade books; those specifically geared for middle graders, and those with enough depth for all ages. These books fell into the first category.

Told in a series of journal entries, Jack communicates to his teacher Miss Stretchberry about his thoughts on poetry. Every time his class learns about a new type of poem or famous poet, Jack writes a poem inspired by them about events in his own life.

Out of the two, I enjoyed Hate That Cat a lot more than the first. I think Jack’s personality came through a lot more than in the first. I liked his sense of humor, he definitely had me smiling =)

He also used the word tintinnabulation is a sentence, which was one of my Wordlover Wednesday Words!

As a 22 year-old, I didn’t particularly get a lot from these stories but I do think they would be good books for their specific age bracket. They both touch on different types of poetry, being embarrassed to put your name on something you’ve created, and most importantly it turns a boy who’s reluctant to write poetry into a boy who loves poetry.

3 comments:

  1. Aw, these sound cute -- if I need a MG gift, I'll keep these in mind! Thanks so much for stopping by! Jen @ YA Romantics

    ReplyDelete
  2. The concept of the book, how you put it in your last sentence actually sounds quite good :)

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  3. These sound cute. I really don't ever read MG (just not my thing) but I always pay attention to the good ones just in case I need a gift!

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