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The blue car that Jack writes about in his poems represents his unresolved trauma. At first, the car’s significance is a mystery: inspired by William Carlos Williams’s poem “The Red Wheelbarrow,” Jack writes that “so much depends upon” the blue car—but he refuses to say why for some time. Eventually, he reveals that sometime before the novel begins, the blue car sped down his street, hit and killed Jack’s dog Sky, and then kept going. The blue car’s regular appearances in Jack’s poetry makes it clear that Jack is still grieving for Sky and is struggling to process watching his beloved pet die. Thus, it’s significant when Jack finally switches to writing poems that don’t include the blue car and instead are more commemorations of Sky. It suggests that finally, the blue car isn’t as significant as it once was; having processed his grief, Jack can focus on remembering his time with Sky rather than fixating on Sky’s tragic and unexpected death.
The Blue Car Quotes in Love That Dog
The Love That Dog quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Blue Car. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Love That Dog
Quotes
What do you mean—
Why does so much depend
upon
a blue car?
You didn’t say before
that I had to tell why.
The wheelbarrow guy
didn’t tell why.
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Explanation and Analysis:
They look nice
typed up like that
on blue paper
on a yellow board.
(But still don’t tell anyone
who wrote them, okay?)
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And maybe
that’s the same thing
that happened with
Mr. Robert Frost.
Maybe he was just
making pictures with words
about the snowy woods
and the pasture—
and his teacher
typed them up
and they looked like poems
so people thought
they were poems.
Like how you did
with the blue-car things
and reading-the-small-poems thing.
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Yes
you can type up
what I wrote
about my yellow dog
but leave off the part
about the other dogs
getting killed dead
because that’s too sad.
And don’t put
my name
on it
please.
And maybe
it would look good
on yellow paper.
And maybe
the title
should be
YOU COME TOO.
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At both ends
of our street
are yellow signs
that say
Caution! Children at Play!
but sometimes
the cars
pay no attention
and speed down
the road
as if
they are in a BIG hurry
with many miles to go
before they sleep.
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And when us kids
were playing outside
kicking the ball
he’d chase after it
and push it with his nose
push push push
and getting slobber
all over the ball
but no one cared
because he was such
a funny dog
that dog Sky
that straggly furry
smiling
dog
Sky.
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And I saw Sky
going after the ball
wag-wag-wagging
his tail
and I called him
“Sky! Sky!”
and he turned his
head
but it was too late
because the
blue car blue car
splattered with mud
hit Sky
thud thud thud
and kept on going
in such a hurry
so fast
so many miles to go
it couldn’t even stop
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I don’t know.
If you put it on the board
and people read it
it might make them
sad.
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And it was nice of you
to read all of our poems
on the bulletin board
and I hope it didn’t
make you
too sad
when you read the one
about my dog Sky
getting smooshed in the road.
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LOVE THAT DOG
(Inspired by Walter Dean Myers)
By Jack
Love that dog,
like a bird loves to fly
I said I love that dog
like a bird loves to fly
Love to call him in the morning
love to call him
“Hey there, Sky!”
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Get the entire Love That Dog LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Blue Car Symbol Timeline in Love That Dog
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Blue Car appears in Love That Dog. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Love That Dog
...he doesn’t like it. His poem reads: “So much depends / upon / a blue car / splattered with mud / speeding down the road.”
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...indignant: why does Miss Stretchberry wants to know why so much depends on the blue car? She didn’t say he had to explain why. “The wheelbarrow guy” didn’t have to explain...
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...sleeps? Also, why does Jack have to write anything more about the muddy, blue, speeding car? He doesn’t want to write about that blue car, which had “miles to go /...
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...tiger tiger burning bright” poem, but it sounded really nice. He’s written about the blue car, but with “tiger sounds”: “Blue car, blue car, shining bright / in the darkness of...
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October 31. Jack agrees that Miss Stretchberry can put his two poems about the blue car on the board, but only if she doesn’t put his name on them.
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...and so people thought they were poems. That’s exactly what Miss Stretchberry did with Jack’s “blue-car things,” and what he wrote about reading the small poems. They look like poems when...
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...the street, waved, and called, “Hey there, son!” Because of this, Jack didn’t see the car coming from the other direction until one of the big kids yelled, “Car!” Jack turned...
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