60 pages • 2 hours read
Sharon CreechLove That Dog
Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Middle Grade | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Literary Devices
Setting
Setting is a literary device that establishes a narrative’s place and time. Love That Dog takes place in a classroom—specifically, Room 105 with Miss Stretchberry. From the book’s first page, readers can make a few assumptions: Jack attends school—but doesn’t necessarily want to be in class—and his teacher requires her students to write poetry. Jack also dates each journal entry according to the school year (September to June). With dates provided throughout the story, readers can easily track Jack’s character development and writing style.
Allusion
Allusions reference generally well-known people, places, or literary works in passing. The book makes allusions to various poems as Miss Stretchberry introduces them to her students. Miss Stretchberry is Jack’s only audience—bar the class seeing his later poems—so when he makes references, he knows she understands their context. Still, Jack provides enough context for readers to identify which poems are being discussed. In Love That Dog’s Bloomsbury edition, its final pages contain the heavily alluded mentor texts and relevant excerpts.
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing hints at a story’s future events—like when Miss Stretchberry asks Jack to write more about a “blue car / splattered with mud / speeding down the road” (6). Jack refuses, implying that the blue car holds more meaning than he lets on, though readers don’t learn the truth until he mentions Sky’s death.
Diction
Diction equates to word choice, and more specifically, how words sound to a reader. Because many poems aim to “mak[e] pictures with words” (23), poets painstakingly select ones that align with their poems’ atmosphere and imagery. Jack’s voice suits a young boy while maintaining a poetic lyricism. For example, Jack reacts to a concrete apple poem by writing, “My brain was pop-pop-popping / when I was looking at those poems. / I never knew a poet person / could do that funny / kind of thing” (35). Jack’s language is informal, his ideas concise without sacrificing clarity or details. Sharon Creech infuses alliteration—words that begin with the same consonant sounds—to make Jack’s voice distinct and phonetically dynamic. Creech’s diction makes the story believable, immersive, and reflective of the poetic medium the story promotes.
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