love that dog

 Creech, S. (2001). Love that dog. New York: HarperCollins. 
ISBN: 978-0756913809

Love that Dog is a simple book, but a great one. Easy to read, it is surprisingly touching and deep. We meet, through a series of poems, Jack, a disgruntled student. Jack can't understand why his teacher, Miss Stretchberry, is making the class write poetry. Here's how Jack sees it:

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

Over the course of the book, Jack's relationship to poetry changes dramatically, and poems are the medium to carry this sweet, profound story. Fans of Jack will want to check out Creech's 2010 sequel, Hate that Cat.