Jake Drake: Class Clown with CD (Chinese-English)

Author: Andrew Clements
Paperback with CD: 175 page(s)
Age Range: 7 - 10
Ontario curriculum: Language - Reading

Book Description:

Knock, knock. Who's there? Jake. Jake who? Jake Drake, Class Clown.

Miss Bruce is the new student teacher in second grade, and she never smiles. Never. But when Jake cracks up the class during a spelling bee, he sees the tiniest hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth. Suddenly, Jake has a new mission in life: to be so funny that even Miss Bruce will laugh!

But then things get out of hand, and Jake finds himself in big trouble. Has Jake discovered -- too late -- that not everybody loves a clown?

School Library Journal
Clements focuses on real-life school problems that plague kids in classrooms everywhere and utilizes humor to make them surmountable and fixable. Here, the fourth grader looks back to second grade when his unsmiling, grumpy student teacher terrifies his classroom. He then becomes too funny for his own good. Jake is an endearing boy who uses his head to sort out appropriate conclusions to bad situations. The characters are well drawn and likable; one rather static full-page black-and-white illustration appears in each chapter.