Hate That Cat (6 page)

Authors: Sharon Creech

B
OOKS
ON
THE
C
LASS
P
OETRY
S
HELF

Adedjouma, Davida, ed.
The Palm of My Heart: Poetry by African American Children
, illustrated by Gregory Christie (Lee & Low, 1996).

Adoff, Arnold.
Street Music: City Poems
, illustrated by Karen Barbour (HarperCollins, 1995).

AlarcÃ³n, Francisco X.
Iguanas in the Snow and Other Winter Poems/Iguanas en la nieve y otros poemas de invierno
, illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez (Children's Book Press, 2001).

Bryan, Ashley.
Sing to the Sun
(HarperCollins, 1992).

Cormier, Robert.
Frenchtown Summer
(Delacorte, 1999).

Eliot, T. S.
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
, illustrated by Edward Gorey (Harcourt, 1982).

Esbensen, Barbara Juster.
Swing Around the Sun: Poems
, illustrated by Cheng-Khee Chee, Janice Lee Porter, Mary GrandPrÃ©, and Stephen Gammell (Carolrhoda, 2003).

Fleischman, Paul.
Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices
, illustrated by Eric Beddows (HarperCollins, 1988).

Frost, Robert.
The Poetry of Robert Frost
, edited by Edward Connery Lathem (Holt, Rinehart, 1969).

George, Kristine O'Connell.
Little Dog Poems
, illustrated by June Otani (Clarion, 1999).

Giovanni, Nikki.
The Sun Is So Quiet
, illustrated by Ashley Bryan (Henry Holt, 1996).

Greenfield, Eloise.
Honey, I Love and Other Love Poems
, illustrated by Diane and Leo Dillon (HarperCollins, 1978).

Greenfield, Eloise.
Night on Neighborhood Street
, illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist (Dial Books, 1991).

Greenfield, Eloise.
Under the Sunday Tree
, paintings by Mr. Amos Ferguson (HarperCollins, 1988).

Grimes, Nikki.
A Pocketful of Poems
, illustrated by Javaka Steptoe (Clarion, 2001).

Hesse, Karen.
Out of the Dust
(Scholastic, 1997).

Hopkins, Lee Bennett.
Been to Yesterdays
, illustrated by Charlene Rendeiro (Wordsong/Boyds Mill, 1995).

Hopkins, Lee Bennett.
Good Rhymes, Good Times
, illustrated by FranÃ© Lessac (HarperCollins, 1995).

Hopkins, Lee Bennett.
Pass the Poetry, Please!
3rd ed. (HarperCollins, 1998).

Hughes, Langston.
The Dream Keeper and Other Poems
, illustrated by Brian Pinkney (Knopf, 1994).

Janeczko, Paul B., ed.
A Poke in the I
, illustrated by Chris Raschka (Candlewick, 2001).

Janeczko, Paul B., ed.
Stone Bench in an Empty Park
, photographed by Henri Silberman (Orchard, 2000).

Koch, Kenneth. Rose,
Where Did You Get That Red? Teaching Great Poetry to Children
(Vintage Books, 1990).

Kuskin, Karla.
The Sky Is Always in the Sky
, illustrated by Isabelle Dervaux (Laura Geringer/HarperCollins, 1998).

Kuskin, Karla.
Toots the Cat
, illustrated by Lisze Bechtold (Henry Holt, 2005).

Levy, Constance.
Splash! Poems of Our Watery World
, illustrated by David Soman (Orchard, 2002).

Little, Jean.
Hey World, Here I Am!
, illustrated by Sue Truesdell (HarperTrophy, 1990).

Livingston, Myra Cohn, ed.
Cat Poems
, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (Holiday House, 1987).

Livingston, Myra Cohn.
Cricket Never Does: A Collection of Haiku and Tanka
, illustrated by Kees de Kiefte (McElderry Books, 1997).

Livingston, Myra Cohn.
I Am Writing a Poem About . . . : A Game of Poetry
(McElderry Books, 1997).

Moore, Geoffrey, ed.
The Penguin Book of American Verse
(Penguin, 1983).

Myers, Christopher.
Black Cat
(Scholastic, 1999).

Myers, Walter Dean.
Brown Angels: An Album of Pictures and Verse
(HarperCollins, 1993).

Nye, Naomi Shihab, ed.
Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young Poets
, illustrated by Ashley Bryan (Greenwillow, 2000).

Nye, Naomi Shihab, ed.
The Tree Is Older Than You Are
(Simon & Schuster, 1995).

Sandburg, Carl.
Grassroots: Poems by Carl Sandburg
, illustrated by Wendell Minor (Browndeer, 1998).

Silverstein, Shel.
A Light in the Attic
(HarperCollins, 1981).

Sones, Sonya.
Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy
(HarperTempest, 2001).

Thomas, Joyce Carol.
Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea
, illustrated by Floyd Cooper (HarperCollins, 1993).

Williams, Vera B.
Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart
(Greenwillow/HarperCollins, 2001).

Woodson, Jacqueline.
Locomotion
(Putnam, 2003).

Worth, Valerie.
all the small poems and fourteen more
, illustrated by Natalie Babbitt (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994).

Yolen, Jane.
Bird Watch: A Book of Poetry
, illustrated by Ted Lewin (Putnam, 1990).

Excerpt from
Love That Dog

Read an excerpt
from Sharon Creech's
companion novel

LOVE
THAT
DOG

D
ECEMBER
4

Why do you want

to type up what I wrote

about reading

the
small
poems?

It's not a poem.

Is it?

I guess you can

put it on the board

if you want to

but don't put

my name

on it

in case

other people

think

it's not a poem.

D
ECEMBER
13

I guess it does

look like a poem

when you see it

typed up

like that.

But I think maybe

it would look better

if there was more space

between the lines.

Like how I wrote it

the first time.

And I liked the picture

of the yellow dog

you put beside it.

But that's not how

my yellow dog

looked.

J
ANUARY
10

I really really really

did NOT get

the pasture poem

you read today.

I mean:

somebody's going out

to the pasture

to clean the spring

and to get

the little tottery calf

while he's out there

and he isn't going

to be gone long

and he wants YOU

(who is YOU?)

to come too.

I mean REALLY.

And you said that

Mr. Robert Frost

who wrote

about the pasture

was also the one

who wrote about

those snowy woods

and the miles to go

before he sleepsâ

well!

I think Mr. Robert Frost

has a little

too

much

time

on his

hands.

J
ANUARY
17

Remember the wheelbarrow poem

you read

the first week

of school?

Maybe the wheelbarrow poet

was just

making a picture

with words

and

someone elseâ

like maybe his teacherâ

typed it up

and then people thought

it was a poem

because

it looked like one

typed up like that.

And maybe

that's the same thing

that happened with

Mr. Robert Frost.

Maybe he was just

making pictures with words

about the snowy woods

and the pastureâ

and his teacher

typed them up

and they
looked
like poems

so people thought

they were poems.

Like how you did

with the blue-car things

and reading-the-small-poems thing.

On the board

typed up

they look like

poems

and the other kids

are looking at them

and they think

they really are

poems

and they

are all saying

Who wrote that?

J
ANUARY
24

We were going for a drive

and my father said

We won't be gone longâ

You come too

and so I went

and we drove and drove

until we stopped at a

red brick building

with a sign

in blue letters

ANIMAL PROTECTION SHELTER.

And inside we walked

down a long cement path

past cages

with all kinds of

dogs

big and small

fat and skinny

some of them

hiding in the corner

but most of them

bark-bark-barking and

jumping up

against the wire cage

as we walked past

as if they were saying

Me! Me! Choose me!

I'm the best one!

And that's where we saw

the yellow dog

standing against the cage

with his paws curled

around the wire

and his long red tongue

hanging out

and his big black eyes

looking a little sad

and his long tail

wag-wag-wagging

as if he were saying

Me me me! Choose me!

And we did.

We chose him.

And in the car

he put his head

against my chest

and wrapped his paws

around my arm

as if he were saying

Thank youÂ thank youÂ thank you.

And the other dogs

in the cages

get killed dead

if nobody chooses them.

J
ANUARY
31

Yes

you can type up

what I wrote

about my yellow dog

but leave off the part

about the other dogs

getting killed dead

because that's too sad.

And don't put

my name

on it

please.

And maybe

it would look good

on yellow paper.

And maybe

the title

should be

YOU COME TOO.

About the Author

SHARON CREECH
is the author of the Newbery Medal winner W
ALK
T
WO
M
OONS
and the Newbery Honor Book T
HE
W
ANDERER
. Her other work includes the novels T
HE
G
REAT
U
NEXPECTED
, T
HE
U
NFINISHED
A
NGEL
, H
ATE
T
HAT
C
AT
, T
HE
C
ASTLE
C
ORONA
, R
EPLAY
, H
EARTBEAT
, G
RANNY
T
ORRELLI
M
AKES
S
OUP
, R
UBY
H
OLLER
, L
OVE
T
HAT
D
OG
, B
LOOMABILITY
, A
BSOLUTELY
N
ORMAL
C
HAOS
, C
HASING
R
EDBIRD
, and P
LEASING
THE
G
HOST
, as well as three picture books: A F
INE
, F
INE
S
CHOOL
; F
ISHING
IN
THE
A
IR
; and W
HO'S
T
HAT
B
ABY
? Ms. Creech and her husband live in Maine. You can visit her online at
www.sharoncreech.com
.