Chapter book 4

Title: Help! I'm trapped in my teacher's body
Author: Todd Strasser
Illustrator:
Readability Score:4.2
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Sub Genre: Fantasy
Theme: Seeing through another eyes
Primary: Jake and Mr. Dirksen
Secondary Characters: Jessica and Ms. Rogers
Awards: N/A
Date of Publication: 1993
Publishing company: Scholastic INC.
ISBN: 0-590-47737-4
Brief Summary: Jake is a trouble maker in school, especially in Mr. DORKsen (Dirksen) classroom. Jake does not like Mr. Dirksen because he is so boring and will not even allow a student to go get a drink of water or use the bathroom. One day Jake gets in so much trouble that Mr. Dirksen makes him carry his science experiment (which converts human intelligence to another body) to his house and talk about why (Jake) misbehaves so much. On the way to Mr. Dirksen's house a storm begins which causes Jake and Mr. Dirksen (and the science experiment) to be struck by lightning. Once they both come to, they realize they have switched bodies!! Jake is mortified, but Mr. Dirksen, now without back pains or a bald head, takes off running to enjoy his new found youth. For the most part the book shows Jakes struggle to convince Mr. Dirksen to switch their bodies back. Jack also gets a lesson to just how hard it is to be a teacher to all those students and the amount of pressure on him from the principal. Mr. Dirksen learns lessons too, as he sees Jake now presenting science experiments to his class- which helps the class to enjoy the lessons and they are now learning more than ever. The defying moment is when Ms. Rogers falls (more) in love with Mr. Dirksen (Jake in Mr. Dirksen) body and wants to get married. Mr. Dirksen then decides he will swap back bodies. Now the only delay is how to recreate the storm...
How you would use: This would be a really fun book for the students to read then write their thoughts of swapping bodies with a particular person (like their mom, teacher, etc...) then do research on that person and see if it would be a good swap or not and what they learned from that person.