Hate That Cat: A Novel
by Sharon Creech
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|
| published
|
October 1st 2008
by Joanna Cotler
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| binding
| Hardcover |
| isbn
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0061430927
(isbn13: 9780061430923)
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| pages
| 160 |
| date added
|
03-01-08
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Read in April, 2008
There are few things nicer than catching a glimpse of an upcoming children’s book title and bursting into laughter at the cover. A nice laugh, of course. I don’t suppose that many people thought that Sharon Creech’s Love That Dog was in particular need of a sequel. It was a perfectly nice book but a succinct and, in many ways, self-contained verse novel. A slim little book, ideal for those reluctant readers who need to read a book ...more
There are few things nicer than catching a glimpse of an upcoming children’s book title and bursting into laughter at the cover. A nice laugh, of course. I don’t suppose that many people thought that Sharon Creech’s Love That Dog was in particular need of a sequel. It was a perfectly nice book but a succinct and, in many ways, self-contained verse novel. A slim little book, ideal for those reluctant readers who need to read a book for class but don’t want anything “too long” (oh, insidious phrase). It also happens to be one of the few verse novels out there that justifies the format, rather than just appearing as a series of randomly broken up sentences. Now Creech has followed up that acclaimed bit of verse with Hate That Cat, a logical extension to the previous title. In the first book Jack dealt with the death of his dog with the help of poetry. In the second, we learn more about his family and about some felines that challenge his resolve.
When last we saw Jack he had learned to love the poet Walter Dean Myers and to accept that his dead dog was gone. Now it’s an entirely new school year and Surprise! Miss Stretchberry is unexpectedly his teacher again. Of course, she’s not too pleased with the series of anti-cat poems he’s been writing lately. Lately a fat black cat has been terrorizing Jack at his bus stop and he is in a full-on anti-feline mode as a result. But there may be some surprises for Jack coming up. Miss Stretchberry is introducing him to concepts like onomatopoeia and synonyms. Though his Uncle Bill (a college prof) is pooh-poohing what constitutes a "real" poem, Jack is able to use his poetry to discuss everything from his mother's deafness to an unexpected Christmas present and an even more unexpected friend.
The novel works, in large part, because it resolves unresolved issues from the first title. By the end of Love That Dog, Jack sort of came to terms with his deceased friend. What’s more, he became a fan of poetry. But he never really got to the point where he’d want another pet. His fear is palpable, particularly when he writes "even if you had a nice cat / that you loved / it might run outside / and into the street / and get / squished / by a car / going fast / with many miles to go / before it sleeps." Now his teacher and his parents conspire to get him another pet and, what's more, one that's as unlike his old one as possible. That would normally be a recipe for ootsy cutesy-ness, but Creech is cleverer than that. For one thing, the evil black cat that enjoys scratching and hissing at Jack whenever it has a chance to do so, is mildly redeemed by the story's end, but in a grudging kind of way. I liked that. It was easier than ending the book with everything sunshine and roses.
The poetry selection in this book is just as lovely as it was in its predecessor. There's a nice bit of Poe, some William Carlos Williams, T.S. Eliot, Valerie Worth, Christopher Myers, and others. And this time I remembered to keep flipping back and forth between the story and the poems in the back of the book as I read. Not everyone’s going to know to do that, you know. Footnotes that mention that you can find the poems Jack’s discussing at the title's end would have been distracting, certainly, but I still think they could have been interwoven into the text. When a class reads this book together, the teacher is able to tell them to read the back of the book. But when a kid is reading it on his or her own, they won’t know until it’s almost too late. Fortunately Jack’s just a great kid to read about. You can’t help but love his ever hopeful “Is he alive?” or “Is she alive?” queries to the long long dead poets he regularly encounters (little wonder he's such a Walter Dean Myers fan).
My co-worker started to read this book and then eventually had to stop. “I think I need to reread the first book,” she admitted, which sounds pretty ridiculous when you consider how slim these stories are. But after a while I could see why she’d say that. When I read the part of the book that said that Jack’s mother was deaf, I couldn’t remember if that had been mentioned in Love That Dog and if it was important or not. The initial introduction is almost a throwaway line ("My mother likes my short lines. She runs her fingers down them and then taps her lips once, twice."). After a while, though, Creech works this new story into the whole kerschmozzle and it pans out very well.
It is admittedly a bit convenient that Miss Stretchberry would just happen to be teaching a new grade and that that grade would just happen to have Jack in it again. But then it’s not as if that sort of thing doesn’t happen from time to time. And though I do not think that there is any way Ms. Creech can continue Jack’s story any further (sequel ideas: Mind That Turtle? Tolerate That Budgie?) she has done a very good job at justifying his further adventures. For fans of the original book, Hate That Cat is going to simply provide more of what they want. And for those who've never read "Love That Dog" it will still resonate as a great book of sounds, inflections, images, and just plain n' simple fun words. A great little book.
Ages 8-12....less
bookshelves:
summer2008
My blog review at A Year of Reading:
This ("The Bells" by Edgar Allan Poe) is one of the poems Miss Stretchberry uses with Jack's class in Hate That Cat, a book that made me cry.
I've tried to be upbeat and cavalier about the end of my eight-year run as a looping teacher. I did not choose to stop; the powers-that-be (the state's licensing of teachers) changed the way we do business in 5th grade at my school and looping no longer fit into the big picture. This book made a few fat tear...more
My blog review at A Year of Reading:
This ("The Bells" by Edgar Allan Poe) is one of the poems Miss Stretchberry uses with Jack's class in Hate That Cat, a book that made me cry.
I've tried to be upbeat and cavalier about the end of my eight-year run as a looping teacher. I did not choose to stop; the powers-that-be (the state's licensing of teachers) changed the way we do business in 5th grade at my school and looping no longer fit into the big picture. This book made a few fat tears run down my cheeks for what I've lost.
Hate That Cat is a testimonial to the power of looping. It's a new school year, and Miss Stretchberry is Jack's teacher again this year. He gets to start right where he left off last year with his riffs on "Love That Boy" by Walter Dean Myers. He doesn't waste the first four weeks in that "get to know you" dance with a new teacher. And then we get to watch as Miss Stretchberry moves Jack and his class into Poe and Eliot and Tennyson and more of William Carlos Williams. She laid the groundwork in her first year with Jack's class for a more formal study of poetry this year, and we watch over Jack's shoulder as he learns about and fiddles with alliteration, onomatopoeia, similes, metaphors, symbols, and sounds. My favorites of Jack's poems are the two that he writes "Inspired by Mr. Edgar Allan Poe" ("The Bells") -- "The Yips" and "The Purr."
Besides knowing Jack as a student, Miss Stretchberry knows Jack as a person (how deeply the loss of his dog affected him last year). You can see this in the way she slowly and gently nudges him out of his hate of "that" cat by feeding him with a steady diet of cat poems, rather than continually suggesting he write about it; she knows he'll get around to that, and he does.
Jack grew a lot as a writer in his Love That Dog year, but Jack makes incredible growth as a writer in this Hate That Cat year. Incredible, but not unbelievable. Any child (all right, all right, most children) in a classroom with a strong writing workshop make amazing progress as writers in just one year. Mostly because they write a lot, but also because they age and mature a year in that year. (Most of them.) If the children from a writing workshop classroom are lucky enough to have a writing workshop again the very next year, then the growth and progress become incredible, like Jack's. Creech has gotten this perfect in Hate That Cat -- she grew Jack as a writer in a plausible way, and she matured him as a person in a very satisfying way.
Walter Dean Myers makes another cameo appearance, along with an appearance by his son, Christopher Myers. It's fun to have the familiar poets back to hang out with the new ones Jack meets. Every time he meets a new poet he asks (alive?) and you know he's got a hankering for a repeat of the author visit in Love That Dog, but Sharon Creech and Miss Stretchberry move him along to new challenges -- novels in verse and the sounds of poetry translated into the motion of signing for a deaf audience.
Whether you read this for the poetry, the teaching, because you read everything by Sharon Creech, or just to see what's up with the cat, you're going to love this book. Watch for it this fall.
...less
Read in May, 2008
recommends it for:
people who liked Love that Dog
Jack (from Love That Dog) is now a year older, starting a new school year, and is happy to learn that his teacher, Ms Stretchberry, has moved up a grade, too, so she'll be his teacher for another year. Ms Stretchberry hasn't lost her passion for poetry so Jack once again chronicles his year in poems. Unlike the first book, he doesn't start out hating poetry; instead he hates cats, or thinks he does.
This has the same sort of poignancy and gentle humor as the first book, and the same ...more
Jack (from Love That Dog) is now a year older, starting a new school year, and is happy to learn that his teacher, Ms Stretchberry, has moved up a grade, too, so she'll be his teacher for another year. Ms Stretchberry hasn't lost her passion for poetry so Jack once again chronicles his year in poems. Unlike the first book, he doesn't start out hating poetry; instead he hates cats, or thinks he does.
This has the same sort of poignancy and gentle humor as the first book, and the same sort of homage to specific poets and poems (in fact, most of the exact same ones from last year -- Ms Stretchberry would do well to live up to her own name). It even has pretty much the same jacket as the first one. But Love That Dog was well loved, especially by teachers, and this one will be, too....less
Read in March, 2008
The continuation of the poetic journey of a little boy who is finding his voice. This is a very touching story, in the same format as Love That Dog. The free verse allows the reader to break away from the institutionalized literary box we've been trapped within. Yet another victory for Creech! Since this novel isn't published yet, I won't provide any spoilers!
Jack and Miss Stretchberry are back and they are tackling poetry again
along with alliteration, onomatopoeia, and a mean black cat. This was
a delight and just as much fun as Love That Dog. Lovely fun with
poetry and Jack's voice is strong and still fresh.
Kate
marked it as to-read
07/03/08
bookshelves:
to-read
Her brilliant Love That Dog led me to Hate That Cat. I can't wait to get my hands on it! I cried over the Love That Dog--the sweetness of the little boy, the delight in creating poetry, the sheer genius of the slim little volume.
bookshelves:
children-s,
poetry
Read in May, 2008
recommended to Carter by:
Alison Morris
I loved it. It holds true to the first book, but stands apart and wholly on its own. An easy recommendation.
Read in July, 2008
recommends it for:
teachers, kids who like poetry
cute sequel to "love that dog." Still done in poetry form, about poetry. Cute, cute. Super short again, maybe 20 minutes to read.
bookshelves:
alltimefaves,
children,
poetry
Read in July, 2008
A great companion book and sequel to Love That Dog. There is so much feeling in such a small book. What a beautiful gem to read.
Read in March, 2008
The poetic fun continues with Jack and Miss Stretchberry and now the cat. Another great way to make the learning of poetry fun.
Read in May, 2008
recommended to Karen by:
Jenny
Loved that Jenny shared the Advanced Reader's edition with me. This was as good or even better than Love That Dog.
Kerri
marked it as to-read
05/07/08
bookshelves:
to-read
A sequel to Love That Dog! Gotta read it just to find out what happened to Jack and Mrs. Stretchberry!
Tiff
marked it as to-read
06/27/08
bookshelves:
to-read
Comes out September 23, 2008! Cannot wait!
book data (includes all editions)
avg rating
(all editions):
4.27 (26 ratings)
avg rating
(this edition): 4.27
(26 ratings)
number of reviews: 13
other editions
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Hate That Cat CD (Audio CD)
isbn: 0061658227
