This massive tome is so long-winded, so overly padded, and such a downright slog that I barely made it to page 100, never mind completing it. I cannot recommend it.

A very interesting perspective of our public schools. Substituting is a very difficult job and, in my experience, is extremely low paying work. I am extremely grateful to our community members who are willing and eager to continue serving our schools in this capacity.

I have started and stopped this book several times. Finally, I picked it back up and read cover to cover. This seems to be a pretty accurate depiction of a substitute teacher’s day. At one minute you’re full of anticipation, maybe dread, and then you decide if you like it or not. This author wrote based on his experiences and while it seems very factual, it wasn’t my kind of book. However, I think his writing speaks for itself.

This book starts out very interesting, the author goes to a short class to become a certified substitute. He is excited to be in a new career. He goes into a lot of detail explaining what happens at the different schools and age groups. Some times it is teaching first graders what a verb is to discussing plant life to high schoolers. It is evident the author was very excited to be on this journey. He wrote details of everyday he worked.

Showing that teachers are really regular people who get stuck in their ways of doing things. Sometimes too strict sometimes not strict enough. There are delightful conversations with the students. I like how the author tried to get on each students level.

It is not a fast read, but everyone will get something out of reading it.

I thought it would be more interesting than it was. The stories were not very captivating and were somewhat dry.

I was hoping for some inspiration here, but a lot of what the author shares is stuff I encounter on a daily basis already, and no new ideas or fresh revelations are included. The story began to lag about halfway through and became a slightly pedantic chore to finish by the end.

Free copy given in exchange for an honest review.

I always liked school, but it's been a long time since I've been in school. Now, I don't think I like school very much. I don't think Mr. Baker likes school very much either. Maybe being a substitute teacher (for every grade, Kindergarten through high school) for 28 days of the school year didn't give Mr. Baker a true and complete window into the current educational system, but it was eye-opening to read about his experiences.

I really liked the kids in this book, probably because it was obvious that Mr. Baker liked them too. He kind of came in as an outsider and observer and didn't really try to fit in or be like the other teachers. He was often making inappropriate and inane comments, seeming to try and fit in with the kids and make them like him - which they really seemed to. So, I guess they all had some good days.

But how in the world do those kids ever learn anything? I think that a school day with a substitute teacher can and will be more chaotic, with less actual learning, than a school day with the actual classroom teacher, but it still got me wondering. It's like they are constantly throwing things at these kids - starting with some really hard things in kindergarten - and just spastically jumping from one thing to the next, never giving them time to learn the basics or settle on any one thing.

Interesting read, but it took me a long (LONG) time to finish. Probably something you should at least look at if you've got kids in school these days.

As a teacher, I wanted to love this book. Unfortunately I found it a bit rambling and way too long. I know this book was already published, but I think it could have been good if an experienced editor had gotten its hands on it.

This read more like a typing out of notes that needed to be edited into a book rather than a book. The overabundance of detail was excruciating. Spending 700+ pages to talk about 28 days without really even like a precis or conclusion was not something I was going to make it through.

A hilarious and enlightening account of an accidental substitute teacher - wannabe teachers should consider this book a must-read -- just like everyone who likes bellow with laughter while reading, in fact!

Honestly, I didn't finish this book. I'm sure it would be interesting to someone who is thinking about subbing or is not in education, but it just didn't hold my interest.

Nicholson Baker worked as a substitute teacher in a small school district in Maine. As a subs at all levels, he uses this book to document the chaos and the clutter of an average school day from elementary to high school. He relates for his readers a month of varied experiences and relays many, many conversations between students - a good proportion have nothing to do with the subject matter that they were supposed to be studying at the time. As a man who sees students as brilliant and talented, he approaches his work with them in this manner, and as he portrays those who teach or work in the schools, his opinions of them also sound forth. He approaches each school day both as an outsider to the work and calling of a teacher and as an insider, one who has stepped temporarily into a teacher's shoes, with hopes of teaching a child something that particular day.

As a reader, the numerous conversations that Baker has captured in print did not hook my attention. Each day was something new and different (though some of the same students show up again at times); this made the stories harder for me to follow. Having worked as a substitute teacher in the past though, I can identify with many of the stories for he has written accurately, in my opinion, about the world of substitute teaching - especially about the challenges.

This book was not enjoyable to me. I didn't feel like I could relate to it.

This book should have been on target for me. I work in education so I thought it would be interesting. It was slow going though and didn't really enlighten me at all.

A regular expectation in a book is seeing a growth or change in the main character, even if the book is nonfiction. I saw no sign that Nicholson Baker had gained any knowledge of dealing with children or giving instruction from the beginning to the end. The chapters could have been intermingled in any order they were so similar.

Overall, an "ok" read. Monotonous. Author goes into exhausting detail about his daily routine at various schools within this Maine school district. Some interesting anecdotes and stories, but overall is was a bit boring.

As a teacher, I was really interested in this one. Turns out, I don't want to read about the minutiae of daily teaching life. Way too detailed. There are some interesting moments, but they get lost in the details.

I couldn't finish reading this. Just letting you know.
The first several chapters were charming and I saw so much of typical student behavior in it that had me smiling ruefully. Even the elementary chapters, and I teach in high school.
However, chapter after chapter simply recounted events. I kept waiting for something, some thread to tie it together or a connection to be made but nothing. The monotony of the chapters felt like I was a substitute myself and that is not monotony I was willing to spend my time reading.
If the second half of the book picked up and I just gave up too soon, I'm sorry. Maybe it redeems itself later. I certainly wanted it to. Other reviews can probably help you figure that part out.

I enjoyed the book, what I read of it. I did read most of it but couldn’t be bothered to read the last chapters. The format of each chapter, a day in the life of substitute teaching, was the same: get an assignment, id card and start the day substituting and tell every conversation that was had with all the students. The stories were entertaining. I did find myself laughing at some and just shaking my head at others. Kids will be kids and sometimes they say the darnedest things. It was interesting to see how school age kids have stayed the same and changed from when I was in school. But there wasn’t anything more to the book than 28 chapters/days of the same thing.

I would read some of the chapters again or as part of another book, but there wasn’t any sort of reason or thread to tie each chapter together. Something that explained Barker’s thoughts or why he was writing this.

*I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 2.5 Stars

I received a free digital copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of this book was interesting, but I felt like the execution was lacking. I worked as s substitute after getting my Bachelor's in elementary education, to see which schools I might like to work at. I then had a one-year contract and subbed more after that while working on my Master's in Special Education. Since graduating with my second degree, I have been employed full time in the Behavior Skills Program, a self-contained classroom within an elementary school for students with identified behavior disorders/emotional disturbances. As a result of my experience in being both a sub and a full-time educator, I know both sides very well. I've had days just like those he described in the first few chapters, but for this first bit I could not quite put my finger on what was lacking. The further I read, it became clear: we were getting minute-by-minute accounts of each day, from the early-AM call through the last bell of the day, but there was no real reflection on any of the days or what he learned from it about the state of education in the US today.

As an aside, I find it alarming that in Maine one merely has to take one evening class, get fingerprinted, and boom, you're a sub. At least here, someone who is not in the field of education can only sub a limited number of days at least. Though it has been 5 years since I have subbed, so things may have changed.

I could readily identify with Baker when he said he felt like he had taught nothing all day. For the times I was in a one-day subbing position I felt like that also. Luckily, I rarely had those. I had several friends who worked at the same middle school as 6th grade teachers, and three of them had babies within two years, so I was lucky to get long-term positions and really get to know the kids. The other teachers on the team then began requesting me as well, and at one point I had subbed there so often that half the kids thought I was a staff member. This went on for three years and by the end of that time, I had strong relationships built with 8th, 7th, and 6th graders because I had subbed so long. As a result of the long-term jobs, I did teach new content - a lot of it. But in those random one day jobs, definitely not. As an educator myself, going on five years now in my position within the Behavior Skills Program, I very, very rarely leave any sub plans that involves subs teaching new concepts. It is not that I don't think they're capable, but it's the way kids are educated today. Unfortunately, particularly in math, students are taught even simple things like one and two digit multiplication in ridiculous, complex ways. They are expected to solve the problems that way on tests, not in ways we were taught 10-20 years ago.

If you have read any previous reviews, you might also know that I am wary of re-created conversations. Unless an author is recording the conversation or taking exhaustive notes, there is no way conversations are 100% accurate - especially considering the volume of those that exist in this book. There is simply no way he would even have had time to take notes, considering how much time he had to spend devoted to the actual students. So, I will go out on a limb and say they have to be fictionalized accounts, at least somewhat.

There also came a point where the book simply got repetitive. Each day started the same - the wake-up call from dispatch, driving to the school, the endless days, and so on and so on. I eventually started skimming, for a couple reasons. One being the repetitiveness as I mentioned, but also partly because I have already lived a lot of days like this. Some I am happy to recall, some not so much.

In the end, I will be the first to say that subbing is a tough gig. I subbed for a long time and there were specific schools and classrooms I would refuse to return to. I was just hoping for something with a little more thoughtful reflection on how an outsider views our educational system and a lot less repetition.