Hate That Cat - Sharon Creech

Published by Bloomsbury Publishing: London, Berlin, New York, 2008.

This short poetic book is the sequel to the short poetic book Love That Dog, a book I have previously read (though apparently long enough ago that it's not on any of my reading lists!). In Love That Dog we are introduced to Jack, a student who struggles to engage with English in any way (it appears he is somewhat on the spectrum). His teacher, Miss Stretchberry, introduces him to poetry through having him write a journal (which we read as the book) and through looking at poems about dogs (which Jack loves).

Hate That Cat picks up the following year, with Jack once again writing a journal in Miss Stretchberry's class, once again resisting writing poetry about anything but dogs (especially not about cats, which a Jack hates) and now grieving the loss of his dog, Sky. Of course, his teacher slowly stretches him into learning new poetic features and challenges his assumptions about cats.

As with Love That Dog, this book is written as a series of poetic journal entries, including some of the poems (by real authors) that Jack and his class study. It is short, easy to read, and fairly sweet.

And much nicer to cats than the title implies.

Completed 31 October 2023.

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