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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Love That Dog, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Magic of Poetry
Teaching and Mentorship
Animals and Grief
Confidence, Passion, and Pride
Summary
Analysis
Jack. Room 105—Miss Stretchberry. September 13. In his journal, Jack writes to Miss Stretchberry that he doesn’t want to write poetry because boys don’t do that. Girls write poetry.
The reader’s introduction to Jack establishes exactly who he is and what his thoughts on poetry are. Poetry, he believes, isn’t something he should have to care about, given that he’s a boy and poetry is supposedly for girls. So, Jack begins the novel wholly uninterested in what seems to be the main thing Miss Stretchberry wants to teach him about.
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September 21. Jack informs Miss Stretchberry that he tried to write poetry, but that he can’t do it. His brain is empty.
Jack continues to resist Miss Stretchberry’s efforts, taking a tone that’s almost surly. Jack insists he can’t write poetry because his brain is empty, which suggests either (or both) that he’s simply unwilling to try, or that he’s not confident in his abilities.
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September 27. Jack doesn’t get the poem about “the red wheelbarrow / and the white chickens / and why so much / depends upon / them.” In fact, if the poem about the wheelbarrow and the chickens can be a poem, then it seems like any words can be poem—as long as the writer uses very short lines.
October 4. Jack asks Miss Stretchberry if she promises not to read “it” aloud or put it up on the board. If she can promise those things, here’s his poem—but he doesn’t like it. His poem reads: “So much depends / upon / a blue car / splattered with mud / speeding down the road.”
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October 17. Jack asks what the “snowy woods” poem Miss Stretchberry read earlier was all about. Why doesn’t the speaker just keep on going, if he has a long way to go before he sleeps? Also, why does Jack have to write anything more about the muddy, blue, speeding car? He doesn’t want to write about that blue car, which had “miles to go / before it slept,” and a long way to go in a hurry.
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October 24. Jack apologizes to Miss Stretchberry. He didn’t understand “the tiger tiger burning bright” poem, but it sounded really nice. He’s written about the blue car, but with “tiger sounds”: “Blue car, blue car, shining bright / in the darkness of the night: / who could see you speeding by / like a comet in the sky? / I could see you in the night, / blue car, blue car, shining bright. / I could see you speeding by / like a comet in the sky.” Jack admits that he can still hear some of the “tiger sounds” in his ears. They sound like beating drums.
October 31. Jack agrees that Miss Stretchberry can put his two poems about the blue car on the board, but only if she doesn’t put his name on them.
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November 9. Jack doesn’t have a pet, so he can’t write about one. He definitely can’t write a poem about a pet.
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November 15. Responding to Miss Stretchberry, Jack admits that he did used to have a pet. Still, he doesn’t want to write about it. He’s certain she’s going to ask, “Why not?”
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November 22. Miss Stretchberry seriously wants Jack to pretend he still has that pet? Can’t he make up a different pet? He could have a pretend tiger, or a hamster, or a snail, or a flea.
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November 29. Jack really liked the small poems the class read today. You can read a lot of small poems really fast, and then you have all the pictures of the “small things” from the poems. He especially liked how the kitten in the poem about the cat leaped, and how he could see the horse’s head in the horse poem. The dog poem, though, was his favorite, because Jack’s yellow dog used to lie down just like the dog in the poem. The yellow dog would lie down with his tongue out, snap at a fly sometimes, and then sleep in his “loose skin.” It was just like how Miss Valerie Worth describes the dog in her small dog poem.
December 4. Why does Miss Stretchberry want to type up what Jack wrote about reading the small poems? What he wrote isn’t a poem—right? Jack supposes she can type it up and put it on the board, but she can’t put Jack’s name on it. Jack doesn’t want his name on it because other people might not think it’s a real poem.
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December 13. Jack supposes it does look like a poem all typed up, but he thinks it’d look better with more space between the lines. Then it would look more like it did when Jack wrote it to begin with. Jack also likes the picture of the yellow dog Miss Stretchberry put up next to the poem, but that’s not what his yellow dog looked like.
January 10. Jack really, really doesn’t get the “pasture poem” that Miss Stretchberry read today. In the poem, someone is really going out into the pasture to clean the spring. He’s going to get the “tottery calf” while he’s there, and he won’t be gone long, and he’d like you (whoever “you” is) to come. Seriously? Also, Miss Stretchberry told Jack earlier that Mr. Robert Frost, who wrote about the pasture, was also the one who wrote about the snowy woods and having miles to go before he sleeps. Jack is pretty sure Mr. Robert Frost has too much time on his hands.
January 17. Jack asks if Miss Stretchberry remembers the wheelbarrow poem from the first week of school. Maybe that poet was just “making a picture / with words” and then someone else, like a teacher, typed it up. Then maybe other people thought it was a poem because it looked like one. Maybe the same thing happened with Mr. Robert Frost. He could’ve just been “making pictures with words” about the snowy woods and the pasture, and then his teacher typed them, and then they looked like poems, and so people thought they were poems. That’s exactly what Miss Stretchberry did with Jack’s “blue-car things,” and what he wrote about reading the small poems. They look like poems when they’re typed up, and other kids think they’re real poems, and they all want to know who wrote them.
January 24. Jack explains that his dad was going for a drive and he invited Jack to come along. They drove to brick building with a sign that read, “Animal Protection Shelter.” Inside, they walked down a cement hallway past cages filled with dogs. Some hid in the corners, but most of the dogs barked and leaped at their cages as if they were asking Jack and his dad to choose them. Then, they saw the yellow dog. He was standing against his cage, with a paw curled around the wire, his tongue hanging out, his eyes sad, and his tail wagging. Jack and his dad chose him. In the car on the way home, the yellow dog put his head on Jack’s chest and wrapped his paws around Jack’s arm as though he was thanking Jack. The other dogs in the cages are killed if nobody chooses them.
January 31. Jack agrees that Miss Stretchberry can type what he wrote about the yellow dog, but she has to leave out the part about the other dogs being killed. It’s too sad. Also, she can’t put Jack’s name on it, and he thinks it would look nice on yellow paper. Maybe the title should be, “YOU COME TOO.”
February 7. The poem does look nice on yellow paper, but Miss Stretchberry forgot—again—to leave bigger spaces between the lines, like Jack did when he wrote it the first time. But that’s okay.
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February 15. Jack likes the poem Miss Stretchberry read today, about city “street music.” Jack’s street isn’t in the middle of a city, so he doesn’t hear loud horns, trucks, and screeches. It’s on the edge of a city, so its “music” is quieter. The street is thin, with houses on both sides. Jack lives in the white house with the red door, and there’s not much traffic on the street. Kids play in the street sometimes, but only if an adult or a bigger kid is around to shout “Car!” when a car drives down the street. There are signs at each end of the street that say “Caution! Children at Play!”, but cars sometimes don’t notice. They speed down the road like they’re in a hurry, “with many miles to go / before they sleep.”
February 21. Those poems that Miss Stretchberry showed the class were so great. Each poem “makes the shape / of the thing / that the poem / is about.” So the one about the apple was shaped like an apple, and a poem about a house was shaped like a house. Jack’s brain was “popping” as he looked at the poems. He had no idea a “poet person” could do something funny like that.
February 26. Jack has written one of the poems that takes the shape of what it’s about. It’s titled “MY YELLOW DOG.” The dog poem has a yellow body, a wagging yellow tail, a head, a nose that’s sniffing, and a slobbering mouth.
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March 1. Miss Stretchberry can type up Jack’s poem about the yellow dog that looks like a dog. This time, she has to keep the spacing exactly the same—and maybe she can print it on yellow paper. Maybe she can put Jack’s name on it. But she should only do that if she wants to, and only if she thinks the poem looks good enough.
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March 7. Jack was a bit embarrassed when people complimented his poem. But he really likes the one Miss Stretchberry put up about the tree. It’s shaped like a tree, but not like a fake one—it has scraggly branches. He wants to know who wrote it and why they didn’t want to put their name on it. Is that student like Jack, back when he didn’t think his words were poems? Maybe Miss Stretchberry can tell “the anonymous tree poet” that the tree poem is a real poem, and a good one, too.
March 14. The poem that Miss Stretchberry read yesterday by Mr. Walter Dean Myers is the best poem ever. Jack apologizes for taking the book home without asking; he only got a small spot on it. The page is torn because he tried to get the spot out. Anyway, Jack copied the best poem and hung it by his bed so he can see it when he’s lying down. Maybe Miss Stretchberry could copy it like Jack did, and hang it in the classroom where the kids can see it while they’re at their desks. The poem Jack likes is called “Love That Boy.” He likes it for two reasons. First, Jack’s dad calls Jack just like the poem does, “Hey there, son!” Second, when Jack had his yellow dog, he loved the dog and would call him, “Hey there, Sky!” The dog’s name was Sky.
March 22. Jack’s yellow dog followed him everywhere. The dog was always wagging his tail and slobbering as he smiled at Jack. The dog smiled all the time, as if to thank Jack for choosing him. He’d also jump up on Jack and give hugs. When Jack and other kids would play outside with a ball, the dog would push the ball with his nose and get slobber all over it. But nobody cared because Sky was such a funny dog who always smiled. Every morning and every evening, Jack would call him, “Hey there, Sky!”
April 4. Jack is happy to learn that Mr. Walter Dean Myers won’t get mad at a boy for using his words. Also, Jack wants to thank Miss Stretchberry for typing up his secret poem, the one that uses a lot of Mr. Walter Dean Myers’s words. Jack especially likes that at the top, Miss Stretchberry wrote, “Inspired by Walter Dean Myers.” It sounds good to Jack, and now people won’t just think that Jack copied because he couldn’t come up with anything of his own. Now people will know that Walter Dean Myers inspired Jack, but Jack would appreciate it if Miss Stretchberry didn’t put that poem on the board yet. Is Mr. Walter Dean Myers still alive? If he is, does Miss Stretchberry think he could come visit their class? If he does, they should hide Jack’s poem just in case it’ll make Mr. Walter Dean Myers mad.
April 9. No. Jack can’t do it. Miss Stretchberry should do it, since she’s a teacher.
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April 17. In a letter to Mr. Walter Dean Myers, Jack suggests that the poet probably doesn’t want to hear from him. Jack is just a boy who doesn’t use big words, after all, and Mr. Walter Dean Myers probably won’t even read the letter. Even if he does, he probably won’t answer it or do what Jack’s going to ask of him. That’s okay, because Miss Stretchberry says writers are really busy writing. They also have to deal with all sorts of other things, like the ringing phone, the fax machine, paying bills, and maybe getting sick (hopefully Mr. Walter Dean Myers isn’t sick). Their electricity could go off, or their car could break down, or they could just have chores to do.
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Jack has no idea how Mr. Walter Dean Myers has time to write when he also has to do those other things, so maybe he should hire some help. But Jack would like to ask if Mr. Walter Dean Myers could find the time to leave his house, and if he’d like to visit a school where kids like his poems. If so, would he consider coming to Jack’s school? The school is clean, the people are mostly nice, and Miss Stretchberry might even make brownies. Hopefully Jack hasn’t taken too much of Mr. Walter Dean Myers’s time—this letter probably takes 15 minutes to read, and in that time, Mr. Walter Dean Myers could’ve written a new poem. So, Jack is sorry for taking up time, and he understands if Mr. Walter Dean Myers can’t come to Jack’s school. Goodbye.
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April 20. Jack wants to know if Miss Stretchberry mailed the letter, and if Mr. Walter Dean Myers has responded yet.
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April 24. Jack is aghast to learn that it could take months for Mr. Walter Dean Myers to answer Jack’s letter, if he answers at all. Until Miss Stretchberry explained it to him, Jack had no idea that the letter would go to Mr. Walter Dean Myers’s publishing company, where someone sorts hundreds of letters to lots of authors and then Jack’s letter will finally go to Mr. Walter Dean Myers, along with a bunch of other letters to the poet. Then, Mr. Walter Dean Myers might be on vacation, or sick, or writing, or babysitting kids or grandkids, or getting his car fixed, or maybe someone will have died. In Jack’s opinion, it might take years to get a response. So, they should probably forget about it.
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April 26. Sometimes, if you’re trying not to think about something, you can’t help thinking about it nonstop. Eventually, it makes your brain feel like “a squashed pea.”
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May 2. Miss Stretchberry can type up what Jack wrote about trying not to think about something, but she should leave Jack’s name off. It was just words that came out of his head. He wasn’t paying attention to how they came out, or in what order.
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May 8. Jack had no idea that spell-check existed on the computer. It’s a “miracle / little brain” in there, ready to help. But Jack is really slow at typing. Didn’t Miss Stretchberry say something about a program that would teach him to type? Will it help Jack type faster and let his fingers move as fast as his brain does?
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May 14. (Jack typed this poem, titled “MY SKY,” by himself.) Jack was outside with some other kids and Sky, kicking a ball around before dinner. Sky was chasing the kids, wagging his tail, smiling, and slobbering. Everyone was laughing at him. Then, Jack’s dad got off the bus at one end of the street, waved, and called, “Hey there, son!” Because of this, Jack didn’t see the car coming from the other direction until one of the big kids yelled, “Car!” Jack turned and saw a blue car with mud splatters speeding down the road. Sky was chasing the ball and wagging his tail, and Jack called for him. But it was too late: the muddy blue car hit Sky and kept going. It was in such a hurry, with a long way to go, it couldn’t stop.
Sky laid in the road on his side, with his legs bent oddly. He was breathing heavily and looking up at Jack. Jack’s dad appeared, carried Sky out of the road, and put him on the grass. Then, Sky closed his eyes and never opened them again.
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May 15. Jack doesn’t know if Miss Stretchberry should put his last poem on the board. If people read it, it might make them sad.
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May 21. Jack has just gotten the best news, and he can barely believe it: Mr. Walter Dean Myers is coming to their school. He was going to be in town anyway to visit an old friend, and he said he’d be “honored” to come to Jack’s school and meet the nice kids who like his poems. Jack’s classmates are lucky that Mr. Walter Dean Myers has a friend in town!
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May 28. The bulletin board looks like it’s “blooming words.” Jack’s classmates’ poems are up there on colored sheets of paper. The bookshelf also looks like it’s “sprouting books,” since it now houses all of Mr. Walter Dean Myers’s books. The books sit there and look out at the students, waiting for Mr. Walter Dean Myers to come to the classroom.
May 29. Jack can’t wait and definitely can’t sleep. Did Miss Stretchberry do a good job of hiding his poem that was inspired by Mr. Walter Dean Myers? Jack doesn’t want to upset him.
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June 6. In a letter to Mr. Walter Dean Myers, Jack thanks the poet for leaving his work, family, and other obligations to come visit Jack’s class. He hopes Mr. Walter Dean Myers enjoyed the visit—it seemed like he did, since he smiled the whole time. When Mr. Walter Dean Myers read poems out loud, he had the best voice. It was “low and deep and friendly and warm,” and it made Jack feel like it was wrapping the students in a big hug. When Mr. Walter Dean Myers laughed, it was the best laugh Jack has ever heard.
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Jack and his classmates hope they didn’t ask Mr. Walter Dean Myers too many questions, but they appreciate that he answered every one. They’re especially grateful that Mr. Walter Dean Myers said he’d be flattered if someone used a few of his words, especially if they also wrote that they were inspired by Mr. Walter Dean Myers. Also, it was nice of Mr. Walter Dean Myers to read everyone’s poems. Hopefully Jack’s poem about his dog Sky “getting smooshed” didn’t make him too sad, and hopefully he liked the brownies. Jack thanks Mr. Walter Dean Myers again for coming to his class and explains that he also included a poem he wrote. It was inspired by Mr. Walter Dean Myers. Jack signs his letter as Mr. Walter Dean Myers’s “number one fan.”
