Jack has a teacher this school year that wants him to write poetry but he doesn't like poetry and he has some opinions and misconceptions about poems. His teacher, Miss Stretchberry is definitely calling him to task. Jack continues to write his poem and fix and add and change things, but he is not happy about it. As his journal shows, he does have questions and starts to understand poetry and Miss Stretchberry's comments definitely help Jack to be come the poet, he didn't know he was or that he wanted to be. ( )

A young guy named Jack (maybe 10 or 11 years old) initially resists his teacher's request that he writes poems because "boys don't write poems, girls do." But as the book (which is made up entirely of Jack's poems) goes on, Jack figures out the secret of writing poems ("just make the lines short"). So, through poetry, he shares the story of his deceased dog and his love of author and fellow poet Walter Dean Myers.

A very quick read. Funny and sad. Sharon Creech seems to get into the head of her main character and let him write great poetry without making him sound overly sophisticated. The book also features some famous poems (e.g. William Carlos Williams and Robert Frost), which are alluded to in the text and included in full in the back of the book. ( )

"No tengo mascotas así que no puedo escribir sobre una y, sobre todo, no puedo escribir un poema sobre una”, dice Jack. Y ésta es la historia donde encuentra su voz con la ayuda de papel, lápiz, maestra y perro".

Nobody warned us but the dog is dead in this book. ( )