Assign yourself a certain number of chapters to read every day. This number depends on how much time you have from the moment you are assigned the book report until it is due. If the teacher assigns a book report that is due in two to three weeks, give yourself a week to read to book.
Take notes on interesting passages, character descriptions and any thoughts you may have on the book as you read. This will make it easier to go back to those passages and descriptions when you are writing your essay.
Plan out a day when you will outline the book report. If you have two weeks to complete the assignment and you spend a week reading the book, one or two days is all the time it should take to plan the way you will report on the book's setting, characters and plot. Assign a topic sentence to each of your paragraphs.
Give yourself two to three days to work on your rough draft. The rough draft is where you elaborate on and flesh out the ideas you came up with in your outline. The rough draft does not need to be neat or grammatically correct at this point.
Give yourself adequate time, about four to five days, to read over and take notes on your rough draft and create a clean book report. Make sure the final draft includes all the information and ideas you think are important to the book.