Poetry and Pet Lovers Will Love This Book

A couple weeks ago, I was taking a break in the back room of the bookstore where I work and I noticed a small book sitting atop a pile of books behind me. Always a sucker for a good dog story, I saw the title Love That Dog and thought I’d take a look. I read the back and then proceeded to open the book to the first page. By the end of the break I was several pages in and determined to finish the roughly 90-page book off during my half-hour lunch break. My lunch was good, but the reading was even more nourishing.

Although Sharon Creech’s Love That Dog is subtitled “a novel,” the print is unusually large and the writing on each page is quite sparse. It is, in fact, a type of epistolary novel, filled with entries in the classroom poetry journal of a boy named Jack. After he writes his reactions to the day’s lesson, first reluctantly but with growing enthusiasm, his teacher arranges his prose so that it looks like poetry.

The book reminded me a bit of Beverly Cleary’s Dear Mr. Henshaw. Like Mr. Henshaw, Jack’s teacher gives advice and instruction to which we only see the response. Furthermore, like Leigh, the protagonist in Dear Mr. Henshaw, Jack is inspired by the work of a particular author and proceeds to write to him. In this case, the author is Walter Dean Myers.

Throughout the book, several well-known poems are mentioned. I was amused by the reference to the William Carlos Williams poem The Red Wheelbarrow, which my class studied during my sophomore year of high school. The poem reads in its entirety: “so much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow / glazed with rain / water / beside the white / chickens.” Jack’s reaction to the poem was similar to my own. Why does so much depend on the wheelbarrow? And what makes this one descriptive sentence a poem?

It also brought to mind the Guy Noir sketch on Prairie Home Companion in which poet laureate Billy Collins assists Guy Noir in apprehending the distributor of numerous shoddy imitations of several Williams poems, most prominently This is Just to Say. For instance: “This is just to say / I have buried your cat / which you left with me for the weekend / and which you were expecting to pick up on Monday. / Forgive me. / She was dead. / So stiff / and starting to smell funky.” Jack’s imitation of The Red Wheelbarrow is the first of many in this book, leading up to his revelation of the poem written in mimicry of Myers’ Love That Boy.

I recognized most of the poems in Love That Dog, and those familiar allusions added to my enjoyment of a book which is simultaneously a very quick read and a very moving story. This is a book about poetry and its power to help those who write it to work through even the most painful of circumstances. Along with that, it’s the simple tale of a boy and the dog that he adores, making this a winner for the literarily minded and animal lovers alike.

That Doggone Dog...

That Ribsy! He may be one of the most agreeable dogs on the face of the planet, but he’s also one of the most likely to get into trouble. In Henry and Ribsy, this spells trouble for his owner, Henry Huggins, who has his heart set on joining his dad on a fishing trip. When he first mentions the possibility, all that his dad says is, “We’ll see.” That sounds like a “yes” to Henry, but when he inquires again, shortly after Ribsy snatches the lunch out of a police officer’s car, Mr. Huggins tells him he can only go if he keeps Ribsy out of mischief. It sounds easy enough, but Henry soon realizes the job is going to be a lot harder than he thought.

To make matters worse, his parents decide to assign Henry the task of taking out the garbage every day. Sure, it means an extra fifteen cents in his allowance each week, but Henry isn’t sure dealing with all that smelly trash is worth it, especially when Ribsy inexplicably frightens the garbage man away, leaving Henry to deal with an overflowing can of extra-gross refuse. Just as unfortunate for Henry is the fact that his mother acquired a pair of clippers in order to give him a home haircut. His worries about his mother’s haircutting skills are realized when he looks in the mirror to discover a head full of chewed up hair, and just before the first day of school, too!

But the book doesn’t only spell disaster for Henry. Ribsy makes up for his recent misbehavior when he impresses Henry’s friends with a spur-of-the-minute stunt, and when he’s accused by the neighborhood busybody of terrorizing Ramona, the sage school principal sees the reality of the situation and defends Ribsy in front of the whole PTA. It looks like Henry will get to go on that fishing trip after all, but with Ribsy along for the ride, Henry endures his most chaotic encounter of the book, emerging with a fish tale he’ll be happy to recount again and again.

I recently re-read these books out of order, but that did not detract from my enjoyment of them. All of Cleary’s chronicles are written with such heart and humor, they are a delight no matter what order they are read in. And while they were written specifically with the juvenile crowd in mind, their appeal does not dim when being read by adults. Three cheers for Beverly Cleary!

Ribsy a Doggone Good Read

Although the series of Henry Huggins books technically ended with Henry and the Clubhouse, it would not be far-fetched to group Ribsy together with the Henry books preceding it. Just as Beezus and Ramona is a stand-alone as the only Beverly Cleary book which takes the point of view of Beezus but an introduction to the Ramona books since it takes place in the Quimby household, Ribsy is a stand-alone as the only book from Ribsy’s point of view but a P.S. to the Henry books since it focuses on a member of his household. It just so happens that this time, that member is a dog.

Ribsy is an extraordinarily easy-going dog, but he does not like being left behind. So it is that he finds himself locked in the Huggins’ car at the mall after chasing it down the block. Because he has spent the morning pestered by a particularly vicious flea, Ribsy is liberated from his collar by Henry, leaving him without identification when he accidentally opens the automatic car window and hops out. This probably would not be a major problem if it weren’t for the fact that Ribsy returns to the wrong car and finds himself rumbling out of town with a gaggle of giggling girls. This is only the first of many interesting stops on his month-long journey back to the boy he loves.

From time to time throughout the story, the readers get a page or so about what is happening in the Huggins household. But for the most part, the book follows Ribsy’s trail, from the girls who give him a bubble bath to a little old lady who dresses him up and teaches him tricks, from a second-grade class that adopts him to a boy not so different from Henry who begins to think of Ribsy as his own. There is an interesting detachment about the writing here that is absent in the books about children. Ribsy is not particularly concerned with what happens to him. Over and over, Cleary tells us that he does not care for one thing or another, but she leaves us with the impression that Ribsy can take or leave just about anything. He is tolerant of almost everything, even if it does not particularly please him. But he is truly passionate about one thing: his young master, Henry Huggins. Throughout his varied travels, Henry never leaves his thoughts entirely. The inevitable reunion is reminiscent of the concluding confrontation between Henry and Ribsy’s former owner in Henry Huggins, with a photo in the newspaper proving the long-lost pooch is alive and well.

Ribsy is an entertaining and unique volume that once again proves Cleary’s skill at getting inside characters’ heads. All sorts of interesting occurrences happen to Ribsy, making for an enjoyable read. This is the only Klickitat chronicle featuring an animal’s point of view, but other Cleary books with a nonhuman protagonist include Socks, Ralph S. Mouse, and The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

For Anyone Who's Ever Loved a Dog

Four weeks ago today was September 11, the second anniversary of one of the most tragic days in American history. It was also the day I found out my dog Sandy's kidneys had stopped working. She had been in good health up until a couple weeks before, and when we had taken her to the vet a week earlier he said she probably had tapeworms. She was 13, but we thought she had at least another year or two in her. We brought her home that evening and stayed with her for the next two days. She died in our living room on Saturday night.

I haven't felt much like writing since then, but since the Livingston Taylor concert prompted me to break my review silence, I figured I should get the ball rolling again. And how better to do it than with a review of one of my all-time favorite books, particularly appropriate to this time in my life? I read Where the Red Fern Grows in sixth grade. I believe it was the first, and still one of the only, books that made me cry. You know what you're in for from the outset of the novel; the narrator tells you up front. But that doesn't make it any easier to read when the time comes.

Where the Red Fern Grows is a tale of the bond a boy shares with his canine companions. It's a theme that has been revisited many times, but with the exception of Old Yeller, I can't think of a more heart-rending take on the theme. The boy in question is a 10-year-old lad named Billy Coleman who lives in the Ozarks and dreams of owning a pair of hunting dogs. His family is poor and can't afford to buy him the dogs he wants, so he spends two years taking odd jobs to earn the money for the hounds himself. When he finally has all the cash he needs, he walks all the way to town to pick them up, deeply impressing the local sheriff. This is a kid who knows what he wants and will stop at nothing to get it.

He names the hounds Old Dan and Little Ann and spends the majority of the book training them and gallavanting through the woods on hunting adventures with them. With Billy's patience and Dan and Ann's skill and devotion to him, they become the best coon-hunting dog team for miles around. Some good, sound advice from Grandpa doesn't hurt either. Billy's dogs are the hounds of his dreams, but the older Billy has already warned us that this dream is not destined to last as long as it should. The intrepid trio deal with heartache in their journeys, but nothing can compare to their final gut-wrenching adventure. If you can avoid it, don't read those last couple chapters in public. It's no use trying to disguise those sniffles.

Where the Red Fern Grows is a homespun tale of the triumphs and tragedies of growing up. The words flow with such natural beauty, taking the readers to a simpler time and place. And the development of Billy's relationship with his dogs is something any dog lover can readily appreciate. I find it very hard to rank books in terms of favorites, but this one has to fall in my top five. It's one of those books I think everyone ought to read at some time or another.

As my luck would have it, I discovered that this book that I have so carefully stored on my shelf for years mysteriously disappeared when I needed it most. I still don't know where it went, but it looks like it's time to admit defeat and buy another copy. This is one book I cannot do without, particularly now that I finally can truly empathize with Billy. If you've never read it, open it up one of these days. You won't regret it.