"The novelist and poet Ben Lerner argues that our hatred of poetry is ultimately a sign of its nagging relevance"--

This is an utterly original and completely beguiling prose novel about a boy who has to write a poem, and then another, and then even more. Soon the little boy is writing about all sorts of things he has not really come to terms with, and astounding things start to happen.

Return to Miss Stretchberry's class with Jack, the reluctant poet, who over the course of a year encounters new and challenging things like metaphors, alliterations, onomatopoeia, and one mean fat black cat! The Newbery Medal-winning author of Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech, introduced Jack in Love That Dog, a New York Times bestseller. Both Love That Dog and Hate That Cat are approachable, funny, warm-hearted introductions to poetry told from the point of view of a very real kid wrestling with school assignments. These books are fast reads that will be welcomed by middle graders as they too wonder how poetry and schoolwork connect with their interests and how to uncover their true voices. In Hate That Cat, Jack is only trying to save that fat black cat stuck in the tree by his bus stop—but the cat scratches him instead! At school Miss Stretchberry begins teaching new poems, everything from William Carlos Williams to Valerie Worth to T.S. Eliot. As the year progresses, Jack gradually learns to love that cat and finds new ways to express himself.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In this unforgettable debut novel, an Indian-American Muslim teen copes with Islamophobia, cultural divides among peers and parents, and a reality she can neither explain nor escape. Seventeen-year-old Maya Aziz is torn between worlds. There’s the proper one her parents expect for their good Indian daughter: attending a college close to their suburban Chicago home and being paired off with an older Muslim boy her mom deems “suitable.” And then there is the world of her dreams: going to film school and living in New York City—and pursuing a boy she’s known from afar since grade school. But in the aftermath of a horrific crime perpetrated hundreds of miles away, her life is turned upside down. The community she’s known since birth becomes unrecognizable; neighbors and classmates are consumed with fear, bigotry, and hatred. Ultimately, Maya must find the strength within to determine where she truly belongs.