This poetry book interested me in some ways, but confused me in other ways. The plot of the story was short and sweet: about a dog chasing a cat and ending up friends. The characters were also very adorable; the bees buzzed and the ladybugs chirped which gave each character a personality. But, the illustrations were hard to follow. The objects, like the grass, trees, and benches, were made up of words that described what they are. The words didn't seem like sentences, they were just words about the object, like the bench was a place to sit on. These illustrations were interesting if someone had time to read about each object, but it made the plot confusing. There were too many words on the pages and they mixed together in my head. Overall, the message of friendship and not judging a dog by the way he barks or runs (like judging a book by it's cover) was sentimental and "cute". ( )

Difficult to figure out how to use this. It's definitely meant for children who can read some of the words, and are ready to have their vocabulary enriched by new words. It also helps if the parent or teacher has an open mind about what poetry is supposed to be like, what stories are supposed to look like.

What I would do is use it in a second grade classroom. I'd like the Big Book of it, or maybe copies for each pair of students, because hidden in the simple pictures are lots and lots of words, some small. (And, unfortunately for my aging eyes, some green-on-green or gray-on-gray.)

I'd treat it like a Wordless book first time through, so the group could get a general idea of the characters and plot line. Then we'd go through again, reading the dog's, cat's, insects', and birds' lines, but still going straight through as a story.

The next day, we'd look at the lines forming the house, car, tree, pavement, grass, clouds, rain, picnic table, etc. This is where I found my favorite bit. One of the verses of the sequence that eventually becomes the tree's own poem is:

Each leaf
ripping and
quivering
each twig
nodding
and shivering
each branch
feeling the winds
whisper but the

slim
chested
great
hearted gnarled-armed
strong
legged
one
stands
firm.

The first portion is green on green; the second is brown, representing the trunk and the primary branch.

So then, depending on how the kids were interpreting the book, we might break out each 'character' or we might focus on the storyline still. But pretty soon we'd be ready to make our own concrete poetry. What words could be made to take the shape of the sun, or a pond, or a whale?
( )

Meow Ruff is a book about a dog and a cat that don't get along. They do their own thing until a storm comes in. They're hesitant at first to be with each other but they had to be due to the storm. They finally begin to snuggle up to each other until the storm passes and then the dogs owner shows up. He asks the dog if he's made a friend and the owner picks the cat up too.

Following the adventure of a dog and his new unlikely friend, a cat, the reader is introduced to concrete poetry. This book uses the design of the text to tell even more of the story.

A fun poetry book that explores the use of concrete poetry. This book tells a story of a dog and cat that escape out of the house into the neighborhood for one wild day. The entire book is told in poetic concrete form. The use of adjectives, adverbs, and figurative language such as onomatopoeia provides a fun read for a young reader.

I would love to use this book in my classroom to introduce obviously concrete poetry, but also figurative language. ( )