Sideways Stories From Wayside School

Sideways Stories From Wayside School. Written by Louis Sachar. Harper Trophy, 1985. ISBN 0-380-69871-4. 124 pages. $5.99

Brief Plot Description:
Wayside is a school where teachers prefer their students to sleep in class, believing that’s when they do their best learning. There’s a teacher who turns kids into apples, a yard guy that kicks bullies over the fence, and a lunch lady whose specialty is mud porridge! The strangest things seem to happen to the students who have class on the thirtieth floor. Dana’s mosquito bites can only be cured by arithmetic, the new student turns out to be a dead rat, and John can only read upside down! There are thirty stories in Wayside School, and thirty crazy stories about the people who go to school there!

Interest Level:
8-12 year olds

Similar Books:
Other Wayside books by Louis Sachar are; Wayside School is Falling Down, and Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger.

Personal Thoughts:
I think this series is an important contribution to the humor genre for tweens because it is written into individual, short stories that can be read a chapter at a time, for more reluctant readers. Also, the unique, and at times gross, humor can be appealing to young boys who are sometimes hard to select books for.

Reason for Selection:

I feel that this book has stood the test of time, and has been in print since I was young. I recently volunteered at a local book fair and saw it on the shelves. A few of the students who purchased it told me later that they loved them. They are easy to read, and I think are well received by reluctant readers, and boys.