December Meeting Wrap-Up: Love That Dog

The Book Buddies Book Club met yesterday afternoon to discuss Love That Dog by Sharon Creech. All of our members really liked the book and the fact that it is a novel in verse. Our club members are all interested in poetry and enjoy writing poetry of their own, especially poems about animals, seasons, life and holidays! Everyone felt that the book really stood out from other books because of the way it was written. One member found it a little bit hard at the beginning but once she got the hang of it she felt like she knew what was going on. Some of our club members had read novels in verse before and for others, this was their first experience.

We talked about what types of people write poetry. We came up with a number of different adjectives to describe poets including funny, calm, smart, nice, fun and busy!

We discussed the ways in which Jack changes over the course of the story. In the beginning, Jack doesn't like poetry, in fact he believes that boys don't write poetry - girls do. But by the end Jack is inspired by many poems and enjoys writing his own. In addition, Jack's poetry improves over the course of the story and he becomes willing to share it with others without remaining anonymous. Finally, Jack's poetry gives him an outlet for his grief over his dog Sky's death.

Everyone agreed that they would recommend this book to a friend or family member and most are excited about reading the sequel, Hate That Cat!

In addition to our book discussion, we also had special holiday cookies and made poetry snowmen for our craft project. Everyone chose different lines of poetry (either their own or from poetry books) and wrote them on snowman ornaments. We had a lot of fun talking about poetry and creating our snowmen!

It was a terrific meeting and a great way to end 2008! I wish everyone a wonderful winter vacation, very happy holidays and a spectacular new year!