Jamaica and the Substitute Teacher By Juanita Havill

I originally chose this book to use with my child study student because she loves the country Jamaica. When I read this book I found out that this girls name was Jamaica. This was interesting to me because that is not a common name in the United States. This showed great diversity that could be used in teaching students. I loved the illistrations in this book. The paintings looked so realistic that I almost thought some of the illistrations were photographs. I found it sad how excited the students were that they were going to have a substitute teacher. I hope that my class doesn't get excited when I'm gone from class someday! This book taught a great lesson by the end. The little girl Jamaica cheats on her spelling test because she wants to make the substitute teacher proud of her, but she feels guilty about getting a perfect score that she doesn't turn her test in. In the end she admits to what she had done and the substitute teachers says that she was very proud of her for being honest and that she would have been proud of her if she would have missed only one in the first place!