Love That Dog by Sharon Creech

In This Kit You’ll Find:

• 8 copies of Love That Dog by Sharon Creech
• 2 copies of Daniel Finds a Poem by Micha Archer
• 2 copies of This is a Poem That Heals Fish by Jean-Pierre Simeon
• 1 copy of the discussion questions (you may keep)
• Book sign-up to keep track of books (you may keep)
• Love That Dog Shape Poem Worksheets (you may keep)
• Daniel Finds a Poem Five Senses Observation Worksheets (you may keep)

Themes for Discussion:

• Love That Dog: Boys & dogs, teacher-student relationships, poetry writing, writing out feelings, boy poets, diaries
• Daniel Finds a Poem: Nature, poetry is all around us
• This is a Poem That Heals Fish: What is a poem?

About the Book:

• Love That Dog: A young student, who comes to love poetry through a personal understanding of what different famous poems mean to him, and an appearance at his school by Walter Dean Myers, surprises himself by writing his own inspired poem. (Novelist)
• Daniel Finds a Poem: A little boy’s animal friends help him discover the poetry to be found in nature. (Novelist)
• This is a Poem That Heals: After his mother, hurrying to her tuba lesson, tells him that a poem will cure his pet fish’s boredom, a little boy tries to find out what a poem is by asking friends, neighbors, and other members of his family. (Novelist)

You’ll Like It If You Like:

Novels in verse, realistic fiction, descriptive writing styles, poetry as inspiration, expression through language, exploring emotions and feelings

Reading Level:

• Love That Dog: Read Together, Grades 3 – 5; Read Alone, Grades 4 – 6
• Daniel Finds a Poem and This is a Poem That Heals Fish: Ages 0 – 8 years

Fun things To Do & Explore at Your Book Club:

• Listen: Former U.S. Poet Laureate, Billy Collins, discusses how best to read a poem out loud for maximum impact in this brief Library of Congress podcast:

Create: Using the worksheets included in the kit folder, create your own poem where the words make the shape of the poem’s subject, also called a shape poem. Use My Yellow Dog by Jack as a possible model or write your own unique shape poem (example: butterfly shape spring poem):

Browse the Stacks: For ALL readers, browse the stacks of your public library or home library and create your own book spine poetry.

Research: Learn more about Walter Dean Myers, whose poem, Love That Boy inspired the book, Love That Dog.

This is a Poem That Heals Fish Readers: Enjoy watching this story board read-aloud:

Daniel Finds a Poem Readers: Using the Five Senses Observation Worksheets included with the kit, go on a poetry walk and create/find your own poems. ReadWriteThink offers good suggestions for your walk and here are some nature poems to read for pre-walk inspiration!

What to read next: