The Dog Ate My Homework by Sara Holbrook

The Dog Ate My Homework by Sara Holbrook 

• Poetry

• Grade: 3rd - 5th

• Awards: None

Summary:

    The Dog Ate My Homework is a collection of poems surrounding the common theme of school. The poems vary from being late to school, to the dog eating the homework, to learning to spell, to bad words, to the last few days of school. Each poem reflects the poet’s mood about that specific event. The first poem entitled, “No Time” expresses the poet’s frustration at having to brush her teeth when she’s already late to school and her breath smells fine. She gives in and ends up brushing her teeth if the person who’s pressuring her agrees to get out of her face. In another poem called “Bad Words”, the author's mood is confused. She discusses Sammy’s use of bad words and how he uses them in a fight, but she finds herself puzzled because she does not know where Sammy learned those hurtful words. The poem labeled “You Promised” is about the poet putting trust in a friend by telling her a secret, but the friend told someone else. This poem displays feelings of betrayal and distrust. 

Evaluation:

    I would not use this book in my classroom because the grade level is 3rd through 5th and that is a little higher than the grade I want to teach. Although I would personally not use this collection of poems, it does exhibit many good qualities of poetry. The mood shown in the poems is clear as can be seen in “No Time”, the mood is evident in the line that says, “I’m so mad”. Furthermore, these poems use figurative language which can be found in “You Promised” where the author uses a metaphor to say, “my secrets are a loan”. In addition, these poems each present these ideas through a child’s perspective so they can relate to how they feel about school. I think this book would be for a unit on comprehension skills. The student would be learning to evaluate details to determine key ideas and many connections to their personal lives.