Jake Drake, Know-It-All

Jake Drake, Know-It-All is the second novel in Andrew Clements’s Jake Drake series. There are four novels in total. The first in the series is Jake Drake, Bully Buster, which was published in April 2001. After the follow-up novel, Jake Drake, Know-It-All, was published in September of 2001, Clements published Jake Drake, Teacher’s Pet in October of the same year. The final novel in the series, Jake Drake, Class Clown, was also published in October 2001. All four novels take a humorous and yet realistic look at the school life and friendships of Despres Elementary School student Jake Drake. In these novels, Clements creates a sympathetic portrait of a clever, kind child who wants to have fun and fit in with his schoolmates but who encounters the kinds of obstacles that many children face—such as confrontations with bullies, being singled out by a teacher, and wanting to excel without separating himself from his friend group. In each story, Jake manages to overcome the obstacles in front of him, learning lessons about himself and the world around him as he manages his circumstances with characteristic good humor and determination.

In the series’ first novel, Clements establishes a pattern that holds true for the rest of the series: Jake, now in fourth grade, tells the story of something that happened to him in an earlier grade and offers insights into what he learned from this experience.