Hate That Cat by Sharon Creech. (Grades 4-7.)Y'all remember Jack from Love That Dog, right? Remember how he thought he hated poetry until he started writing some himself?
Well, he's back. A whole new school year, a new writing notebook, a furry nemesis, and the same teacher who followed his class up a grade.
In Hate That Cat, Jack's class is studying different poems. At first some of them don't seem to make much sense. (What is up with the red wheelbarrow, anyway??) But the more he reads them, the more they grow on him. And the more poems he writes, the more he figures out about himself and his family and his place in the world.
Jack's also pondering some interesting questions:
Something I am wondering:
if you cannot hear
what happens when you read
purr purr purr
or gurgle
or chocolate chalk?
Can you somehow
feel
the purr purr purr
the gurgle
the chocolate chalk?
Do you feel the sounds
instead of
hear them? (pg 23)
This would be a great book to include in poetry units. In the back of the book Creech includes the poems that Jack talks about and imitates. I'd hand this to fans of Love That Dog, poetry buffs, and young writers.
Also reviewed at Kidsread.com, Fuse #8, and Sarah Miller.