Teacher’s Notes

Teacher’s notes

PENGUIN READERS
Teacher Support Programme

LEVEL 3

Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog and Other Stories
Mark Twain

tell the tales of ordinary American people at this time. The
stories are often funny but there is also a serious message
in each one.

Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog
The first story is about Jim Smiley, an obsessive gambler
who plays tricks on bothfriends and strangers. He does
not think about the consequences of his actions and he
often treats animals cruelly to win money. Finally another
man plays a clever trick on Jim, who learns how it feels to
lose money unfairly.

The Other Side of War

About the author
In 1835 Samuel Clemens was born in a small town on the
Mississippi river. He grew up with a love of story-telling
that wouldlead him to become one of America’s bestloved writers, under the adopted name of Mark Twain.
Mark Twain started writing at an early age, taking a job
with a local newspaper before his curiosity took him
further afield. He experienced life as a soldier, goldminer
and riverboat pilot before his first successful story, Jim
Smiley and his Jumping Frog, was published in 1865.

Is He Living orIs He Dead?
This story is about a group of struggling artists in France
who trick the public into paying high prices for their
artwork. In an unjust world they find that it is the only
way to make a living.

Passport to Russia

Further short stories and writing of his many travels
abroad soon established Twain as a leading humorist. His
greatness as a writer became apparent with thepublication
of his most famous novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
(1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).
Both books are heavily influenced by Twain’s own
Mississippi childhood. Today these books are considered
to be two of the finest novels in the English language.
Although Twain was popular and influential as a writer,
his publishing business collapsed and his later years wereplagued by financial worry. This, as well as the death of
three of his children, brought a tone of bitterness and
cynicism to his later writing. To earn money, he went on
extensive lecture tours around the United States, which
made him even more popular with the American public.
He continued to write until his death in 1910. Today
Mark Twain is credited with helping to shape America’svision of itself and he is regarded as a national treasure.

In Passport to Russia an old gentleman persuades a student,
Alfred, to travel with him to Russia. He promises to take
care of the travel arrangements, but the friends he claims
will help cannot be found. Alfred ends up in Russia with
no passport and the threat of a prison sentence. He is
saved only by a strange coincidence.

A TrueStory
A True Story tells of the dreadful life of Twain’s own family
servant, Aunt Rachel. Despite always seeming jolly and
content, Rachel, we learn, was beaten, sold and separated
from her family. People’s appearances can often hide great
hardships.

Murder in Connecticut
This is a clever story in which a writer’s conscience appears
as a monster in his own home. After tryingunsuccessfully
to reason with it, the writer decides to trick the monster
and eventually he kills his own conscience. As a result he
becomes a monster himself, living cruelly and selfishly for
the rest of his life.

Summary
This book contains eight short stories written by Mark
Twain. All but two of the stories are set in North America
during the second half of the nineteenth century and they
cPearson Education Limited 2008

The Other Side of War tells of a group of young
Confederate soldiers in the American Civil War who
spend their time trying to avoid fighting but end up
killing an innocent man. The men are so sickened that
they leave the war and return home.

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