Jake Drake 4 – Class Clown

Andrew Clements's Class Clown is the fourth Jake Drake story, a school story for 8 year olds about a joke that goes much too far.

What happens

Jake thinks of school as his job, and of teachers as his bosses. Some bosses are fine. Some are sourpusses. His best friend Willie got a sourpuss for a whole year and spent it being told off for smiling.

Then Jake casts his mind back to second grade, and Miss Bruce.

Miss Bruce was a student teacher, and she never smiled. Not once in three days of watching from a chair at the back of the room. When she took the class over, everybody went quiet and stayed quiet.

In the spelling bee she puts a girl out for forgetting to say the word first, and won't give her a second chance. Something in Jake snaps. Asked to spell mouse, he does it in a Mickey Mouse voice. M, i, c, k, e, y.

Nobody laughs out loud. But the whole room takes a breath and holds it, and Jake catches something on Miss Bruce's face that might just have been a smile.

Then he overhears her in the library, telling his real teacher how funny he was, and that she has been advised not to smile until Christmas. And that's it. He's off. He practises knock-knock jokes on his little sister, who prefers the word toodle to the actual joke, and comes down to dinner as Mr Funny Bone.

Your reader will see where this is heading and enjoy every step of the way down.

What makes it more than a funny book is what happens afterwards. The class erupts, and the person it lands on is Miss Bruce, who is young and frightened and ends up crying in front of everyone. Jake has to sit across a table from her and apologise, and then makes it worse by opening his mouth again.

Nobody in it is a villain. Miss Bruce was too strict because she was scared. Jake wasn't being cruel, he just liked being funny. The book lets both of those things be true at once.

If your child has a class clown in them, or sits next to one, this will land somewhere useful without ever preaching at them.

What to read next

Bully Buster is in the library too, and it's Jake on the other side of things, working out what to do about a boy who has decided to make his life difficult.