Creech’s Novels in Verse

I am a huge fan of Sharon Creech’s Love That Dog, which The School Library Journal called a “tiny treasure.” And I have been anxiously awaiting a copy of the sequel Hate That Cat, about which SLJ claims, “For fans of the original book, Hate That Cat is going to simply provide more of what they want. And for those who've never read Love That Dog it will still resonate as a great book of sounds, inflections, images, and just plain n' simple fun words.”

While waiting, I decided to revisit another of Creech’s novels in verse – Heartbeat. (SLJ said it “is vintage Creech, and its richness lies in its sheer simplicity.”)

But it seemed to me that all of the poetic simplicity of Heartbeat was all leading to the final poem, the final lines, all leading to:

a small shiny brown seed
tear shaped
elegant
both old and new
silent
and
full
of
secrets

Alas, this little seed was not enough. I didn’t feel compelled by Annie and Max in the same way I was compelled by Jack. The whole book, though lovely, seemed like a conceit for that final image – and it simply wasn’t filling enough.