Love That Dog by Sharon Creech

Wonderful young adult novel in poetry form, where a boy has to write poetry for his English class and feel stupid doing so. Over the year he starts sharing things with his teacher and he learns not only about poetry, but himself. I sent this to a 13 year old relative in Latvia, who is learning English and have been having a good time translating it into Latvian for her. The language is simple, but engaging.