This book is appropriate for 2-3rd graders because it is a chapter book and it is a little long. This book is about Jake who is set on a goal of making his substitute teacher Miss. Bruce smile. He decides he is going to be the class clown because one day he made her smile and now he has set out that he will make her laugh. He soon discovers that the class clown is not liked by the other children and especially by the teacher because the classroom becomes out of control. Jake learns that school is not the place to be a clown and that teacher have a very hard and important job and he shouldn't make it harder.
Teachers could use this book to:
-independent reading. Students could read the series of books during quite time.
-Teacher could read the book to the students and ask them questions about the book.

Jake Drake's teacher is going away, and the sub does not smile and she is really mean. But, Jake hears something that stuns him and he figures that it is an advice. He just has to do something that can help: he has to get a laugh some way. ( )

This book is about forth grader who recalls his second grade student teacher Mrs. Brattle. Mrs. Brattle was not like his regular teacher. Mrs. Brattle was serious, not fun and never smiled. One day Jake Drake made a silly comment that made this student teacher smile. After that, Jake was on a mission to make her laugh and became the class clown. However, his plan backfires and he makes Mrs. Brattle cry because the classroom gets out of hand one day. In the end, Jake learns that school is not the place to be a clown and learns an important lesson about what a teacher’s job really is like.

I really enjoyed this book and appreciated the relationship that the author created between the student teacher and Jake Drake. At the end of the book Jake Drake’s behavior had a different impact than he expected on Mrs. Brattle. Jake Drake realized that he messed up and really embarrassed his teacher. He learned a valuable lesson about behavior and at the end you can really appreciate that their relationship only became better after overcoming this problem.

I think that this would be another good book to open to classroom discussion. I would ask the class about things that they feel was funny in the book, however, pointing out to them that it may have been funny but was inappropriate. I would discuss with the class that there is a time and place for everything and recall points from the book that shows the negative consequences that sometimes we may accidentally create when we are not careful.