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BY THE SAME AUTHOR ABOUT THE AUTHOR Reading Group Guide Absolute Normal Chaos Walk Two Moons Chasing Redbird Pleasing the Ghost Bloomability The Wanderer Fishing in the Air Granny Torrelli Makes Soup Love That Dog Ruby Holler Heartbeat © Matthew Self FOR ADULTS IN BRIEF The Recital Nickel Malley Sharon Creech was born in South Euclid, Ohio, where she grew up in a busy Love That Dog is the story of Jack, a reluctant young student of poetry, house with her rowdy family. She became intrigued in story-telling while tak- and Sky, a yellow dog he refuses to discuss. ‘Can’t do it,’ he writes in ing literature and writing courses in college, and went on to teach English and September: ‘Brain’s empty.’ But as the year progresses and his teacher writing in England and Switzerland. Her first two books, published only in Miss Stretchberry feeds him inspiration, Jack finds he has more to say, and England, were novels for adults; since then she has written mainly for young many different ways to say it. people. In 1995, she was awarded the Newbery Medal for Walk Two Moons; in 2001, the Carnegie Medal committee commended her for Love Rosie and Bailey have been best friends since the day they were born. That Dog; and in 2002, she won the Carnegie Medal for Ruby Holler. Lately, though, they haven’t been getting on too well. Rosie can change from old pal to ice queen in an instant, and when a new girl moves into the street, Being with her family is what Sharon Creech enjoys most. The next-best things suddenly get very cold. But Rosie’s Granny Torrelli is calm, funny thing is writing stories. and smart. As she and Rosie talk and cook, and cook and talk, her stories of having loved and lost prove as warming to Rosie as a pot of hot zuppa. ‘Thump-thump, thump-thump … I run run run in the air and like the air.’ In a year when everything is shifting around her, Annie loves to run. Her moth- er is about to have a baby, her grandfather keeps forgetting things, and her best friend Max gets moodier and moodier. Annie is growing up, facing big- ger questions than ever before. Heartbeat is the story of a thinking girl, READING GROUP GUIDE WRITTEN BY NEVILLE GOMES trying to find a new rhythm in her life. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION Granny Torrelli Makes Soup Heartbeat 1. ‘… he was better than a brother because I chose him and he chose me’ (p.8). 1. ‘… when I look at my own list / of fears and loves / they seem too big’ (p.36). Love That Dog What do you know about Rosie’s family, and about Bailey’s? How might this help you What does Annie mean by ‘big’? Do her thoughts, here or anywhere else in the book, to understand the way they behave? seem to you unusually big? Or is it something else about her – such as her openness 1. List all the reasons you can think of why Jack might not want his name on his or her ability to express them – that is unusual? poems. Why does he change his mind with ‘MY SKY’ on page 74? What do you think 2. What exactly does Bailey mean by ‘get over yourself’ (p.8)? Might Rosie have could have led Jack to believe that ‘… boys / don’t write poetry. // Girls do’ (p.1)? needed (or might she still need) to get over herself? Could Bailey even have been giv- 2. ‘I suddenly feel shy with Max / aware of his long legs and long arms’ (p.47). How ing her some helpful advice? would you describe Annie and Max’s relationship? How do you think it has changed in 2. Have you ever been taught to write poetry? If so, how do your experiences compare their lives so far and how may it continue to change as they grow older? to Jack’s? How would you describe Miss Stretchberry? We never get to read or hear her 3. ‘… always making good things … always telling me about my smart head’ (p.10). responses to Jack; what sort of thing do you imagine she writes or says to him? Why is Granny Torrelli always referring to Rosie’s ‘smart head’? What effect do you 3. Why has the author chosen to include Annie’s dreams (pp. 20–1, 52–3, think this has on Rosie? What is the connection between Granny Torrelli’s ‘making 118–19)? Do they help us to understand the way she feels? How would you 3. Is it true that ‘… any words / can be a poem’ (p.3)? The book contains passages good things’ and all her other qualities? How and why do cooking and food play such a describe Annie’s reaction to her mother’s pregnancy? What sort of older sister do which Jack has written as poetry, some poems which are ‘just words / coming out of big part in the story? you think she will be? my head’ (p.65), and also his communications to his teacher. But could everything he writes be described as poetry? 4. What does Rosie mean when she says ‘that Bailey’ (p.11) or ‘that Granny 4. ‘Max also reminds me … I remember that moment’ (p.27); ‘And if you forget / is Torrelli’ (p.12)? How are these phrases different from saying just ‘Bailey’ or ‘Granny it as if / it never happened?’ (p.43). What part do remembering and forgetting play 4. ‘You’ve just got to / make / short / lines’ (p.3). How does Jack decide where to Torrelli’? Are they angrier, or more affectionate, or something else? in the book? How do they affect Annie, Max and Grandpa? How might it be significant end his lines? Is this decision-making process enough to make all his writing poetry? that the ‘Fried Chicken’ chapter ends with Annie’s ‘crunch, crunch, crunch’ (p.44)? As an exercise, write any poem from the book out as prose, and ask someone to put 5. Why do Bailey and Rosie ‘put on plays’ (p.28)? Is there more to their games than in their own line breaks. just fun? How might this connect with Rosie imagining Pardo and Violetta with the 5. ‘… the little notes were printed there / in charcoal pencil’ (p.53). How would you words ‘There is a little play going on in my head’ (p.120)? connect Annie’s love of drawing with her love of running? What do the activities have 5. Is it fair that Jack is asked why so much depends on the blue car, when ‘the wheel- in common, and how are they different? barrow guy’ (p.5) didn’t have to say why? Jack says that he doesn’t understand the 6. Did you agree with Granny Torrelli that ‘This is a tough one, Rosie’ (p.65)? How poems about the wheelbarrow, the tiger, and the snowy woods; and that he ‘really real- would you have explained to Rosie what made Bailey so cross? Why did Rosie react 6. How does the art teacher’s name, ‘Miss Freely’, compare to her approach to ly really / did NOT get / the pasture poem’. Do you feel that you understood more so angrily to him? Who was to blame for the falling-out? Could Granny Torrelli simply her subject? Why might the author have chosen for Annie to draw an apple, rather about these poems than Jack? have explained to Rosie that Bailey had needed to be able to do something Rosie could- than anything else? n’t? If so, why didn’t she just tell her at the beginning? 6. What different ways are there of ordering Jack’s poems, his other writing and 7. ‘…knowing / that I do not like / to be wrong / which is probably / a serious char- the poems which inspired him? Why has the author chosen this particular arrangement 7. How exactly do Granny Torrelli’s stories connect with Rosie’s difficult situations? acter flaw’ (p.115). What do you think of Annie’s self-analysis? How good is she, in for the book? Would you have ordered the book differently? Is there more than one way that Pardo, Nero, Violetta and Marco are relevant to Rosie? general, at knowing herself? How well do the other characters know themselves and Why do Rosie and Bailey seem to understand the ‘tangled web’ (p.131) of Granny are there occasions where they avoid thinking about things? 7. ‘Now no one / will think / I just copied’ (p.51). Does it matter, as Jack worries, Torrelli’s past so easily, when they find it so difficult to make sense of their own? that he uses the words and ideas of other poets? What is the difference between 8. ‘… the coach will not leave me alone / until I say something that lets her win’ ‘copied’ and ‘inspired by’? How do you think the poems Jack reads help him with his 8. ‘Oh, this is so extremely fascinating!’ (p.100). What do you think of Janine? Can (p.71). What do you think of Annie’s reading of the coach? How do the characters’ writing? Would you be ‘flattered’ at someone using your words, as Walter Dean Myers you see why Bailey likes her so much? Is it possible to separate your view of her from varying competitiveness relate to their behaviour outside sport? Which lines show is (p.84)? If any of Jack’s poems were more original, would that make them ‘better’? your closeness to Rosie as the story’s narrator? how and why Annie feels strongly about competing? How might this relate to Max and Grandpa’s ideas and experiences of being competitive? 8.

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