If you avoid poetry because you never understand/understood it at school and you missed this book in hardcover I suggest you race out right now and buy it in paperback. In fact the more you avoid/ed poetry at school the more you'll love this book.

Love that Dog is about a boy called Jack who is in Miss Stretchberry's class at school. Miss Stretchberry, like all good English teachers, is trying to help her students understand poetry better. Jack however, doesn't want to write any poems 'because boys/ don't write poetry. /Girls do'. Told in free verse, Love that Dog is the journal of two journeys that take place in Miss Stretchberry's English class. The first is Jack's journey with poetry - as readers we chuckle and sympathise with him as he wrestles to understand how poetry works in general. In the second journey, which runs parallel to the first, we see Jack learning how poetry can work for him. This reader loved the ending because she didn't see it coming and found it completely heart-wrenching.

Lots of people are writing books in free verse these days, some are doing it well, others not so well. My call is that Love that Dog is a masterpiece! In my humble opinion it will go down as one of the funniest and most touching free verse novels ever. It should be compulsory reading for anyone who has ever tried to understand or teach poetry.

I usually take the blurb on the back of a book, and the media release tucked inside a review copy, with a pinch of salt.  In this case though I have to say:

Love that Blurb:

'Is it a diary? Is it a novel? Who cares? It's simply the most original book I've read for years, and I see it as my duty to tell the world that the 'book that cannot be pigeonholed' has been written. Long live the author, may her imagination touch us all';

Love that Media Release:

'an inspiring, uplifting, compassionate story about a boy who spends all year trying to find a way to talk about his beloved dog, Sky. His mind is awakened when the seeds of poetry are planted in his soul'

But above all - Love that Book!

Stop reading this review right now, and go and find a copy of Love that Dog - it'll take you just over an hour to read, it'll be the best hour you spend all weekend - promise!

 Other titles by this author:
Bloomability (Macmillan, 1998)

Review by Sarah Mayor Cox

© 2003 Sarah Mayor Cox