Sideways Stories from Wayside School

A True Delight

I was desperately seeking a book that would inspire a love of reading in my 9 year old. She hated reading. A friend of mine is a school teacher and she highly reccommended this book. My child loved this book! I could hear her laughing as she read it. Truly excellent.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Wonderful book for a new reader

I read a chapter in this series with my friend's son each night. The characters keep him interested and engaged. The comedy of each special "wayside" situation provides lots of conversation points with my favorite six year old. The writing is easy enough for him to practice reading the lines of each character, and the situations silly enough that we make it to the end of the chapter laughing! Some of the content might be edgy for some parents, so it is important to read the content in advance so you are prepared to answer questions about a smelly rat or the pulling of braids. I highly HIGHLY recommend this book to any parent or grandparent looking for a way to get a child, especially a boy, interested in reading.

Wayside School...

my teacher used to read this book in class when i was still a kid in elementry school and it was one of my favorite books ever... to be honest i haven't read it since third grade or so, now i'm a freshmen in high school, but i would recommend it to anyone anywhere! it is great, funny, and a major attention getter of children around the ages of first to fourth grade... i'm so glad that my teacher read it to me.

Sideways Stories Great for School

I started reading this book to tots over 20 years ago and it still works. It's a chance to use funny voices and get the class/children to participate. The original cover was better but the content is still super. Great book to read to a class of 6 year olds!

Great!!!!!!!

I think this book was really great! My 1st grade teacher read this book to the class and everybody loved it. I recommend this book to all ages. It was hilarious and the characters were so wacky!!!!!!

Enjoyable

This book was really fun to read! It's funny and alive, a great pick for non-readers!

Sideways stories

Sachar, L. (1978). Sideways Stories from Wayside School. New York: Avon Books.

0380698714

This is the first book in Sachar's famous and much loved Wayside School series. While not lacking action, each chapter presents itself as a character sketch of the students and teachers on the 30th floor of Wayside School, which was accidentally built up vertically instead of the planned horizontally. Sachar (pronounced Sack-er) actually included himself as a character, Louis the yard teacher.

While this series may be best for allowing students to enjoy books that will make them laugh out loud, a teacher could also share a general lesson on metafiction and Surrealism. The teacher would be able to bring in other children's books (such as Jumanji or Zathura by Chris Van Allsburg) that show absurd or dream-like qualities.
While I remember finding these character sketches immensely entertaining as a child (and I know I wasn't alone) I had a very different experience reading the series as an adult and as a teacher. I remember as a child, thinking the young replacement for Mrs. Gorf was a good teacher. Reading it this time, I felt Mrs. Jewls still managed to fall short as a teacher when it came to communicating with students.

As the series go on, what initially are basic character profiles extends out into long running jokes and overlapping plots. All of the books demonstrate the fun a writer or student can have with language.
Also, this is a good series to share with undergrads studying to be educators. There are a number of commentaries about different approaches to teaching.


Activities to do with the book:

This series is probably best to amuse middle grade readers.

However, if a teacher really wanted to do lessons with this book, he or she could lead students into a discussion of surrealism. As for activities, a teacher could encourage students to record their dreams and turn them into stories.

Also, since there are so many characters in the book, each student in a class could be assigned a character and he or she could play that character if the books were acted out or the student could write a continuation of that character's story. Another option would be to write a story in which the student was one of the many characters.


Favorite Quotes:

"It has been said that these stories are strange and silly. That is probably true. However, when I told stories about you to the children at Wayside, they thought you were strange and silly. That is probably also true" (p. 9).

"[The student] were afraid of what their new teacher would be like. They had heard she'd be a terribly nice teacher. They had never had a nice teacher. They were terribly afraid of nice teachers" (p. 15).

"Class," said Mrs. Jewls. "Let's all thank Louis for his wonderful story."
Everybody booed" (p. 124).

For more of my reviews, visit sjkessel.blogspot.com.

This is one of the best books ever!!!

My favorite part is when Butter Fingers touch the ball and the ball slipped off his fingers. What was really funny about this book is the names of the characters. For example, Eric Bacon, Eric Frye and Eric Oven. Those were the funniest names I ever heard in my life, EVER!!! It was HILLARIOUS!!!

Cameron Fane
7 years old

Sideways Stories From Wayside School Review

I like Wayside School because each chapter has children or child or adult that goes to Wayside School. This book is are for people who like funny stuff. I think one of the best chapters was Mrs. Jewels. When she first got in she thought everyone was a monkey.

Great

One of the greatest book I've ever read!!

Silly fun

Wayside School was a set up to be special from the moment the builders mistakenly built it as thirty one-room floors instead of one thirty-room floor. Luckily this left a lot of extra space for the playground, a playground that Mrs. Jewels' class rarely gets to play on since their room is at the top of the building.

I remember loving the Wayside books as a kid. Anything and everything could and did happen, from dead rats who are determined to sneak into Mrs. Jewels class, to Mrs. Zorf (who doesn't exist, and her classroom on the 19th floor which also doesn't exist) to puns and humorous literal interpretations of concepts. In trying to expand my children's love of stories I picked Sideways Stories from Wayside School to read before bed each night.

While we enjoyed some stories, like Mrs. Gorf (who turns the kids into apples when they misbehave), Mrs. Jewels (who thinks the class is filled with monkeys because children can't possibly be so cute) and Todd (a student who just cannot seem to get through a whole day without being sent home, no matter how hard he tries), others were a complete miss. There were some stories I feel we didn't connect with because my son is a very literal thinker and didn't "get" the joke.

Being willing to believe anything is important to enjoying the thirty short stories in this book. If your child can suspend disbelief then they'll love these wacky tales. But if you stall on how unreal the concept of a story is then it's hard to get past that. Sachar doesn't suspend disbelief, he assumes you've already done that and writes a story about what happens afterwards.

Most of the stories are about three pages long, which lends well to before bed reading. Each is about a different student or teacher, but they all feature a familiar cast of characters which also makes this book good for reading in small bits since each story is like an episode, a whole story on its own but expands the world of Wayside a little bit at a time. The short length of the stories will also help children still learning to read or parents who burnout on books aimed at kids balance the pros of reading together with the frustrations.

A great read aloud

When our teacher first read 'Wayside School', we knew it was a silly and odd book. There's lots of funny parts like when Mrs. Gorf got turned into an apple. We laughed. The book should be good for all ages. Hope you enjoy the book.

A reviewer

The best book I've read this quarter is 'Sideways Stories from Wayside School.' The main characters were some teachers and all the kids in Mrs. Jewel¿s class. They just pretty much say what they like. I like Todd, he gets in trouble all the time. Its pretty much this upside down school. There are thirty stories in Wayside School. There's no nineteenth floor and no Miss. Zarves. They built the classrooms on top of each other. The school is very tall. The setting is in the school. To tell funny stories is the theme. I'd like this story a lot because I like funny stories. I connected because I do funny things a lot and weird things too.

Sideways Stories is Funny!

There are thirty characters for every chapter. They are Mrs. Gorf, Mrs. Jewels, Joe, Sharie, Todd, Bebe, Calvin, Myron, Maurecia, Paul, Dana, Jason, Randi, Sammy, Deedee, D. J., John, Leslie, Miss Zarves, Kathy, Ron, The Three Erics, Allison, Dameon, Jenny, Terrence, Joy, Nancy, Stephen, and Louis. The thirty chapters represent the thirty stories of the school. This story talks about the characters. It talks about what the characters like and don¿t like. It also talks about all the characters differences. So if you read this story you will notice they fight. It is in and outside the school in the summer. The main idea of this story is that Wayside School is sideways and has thirty stories and has thirty people in one classroom. I liked this story because it talks about what these thirty people are like. I connected to this story because everyone is different and everybody likes different things. There is another story like this one called Wayside School is Falling Down but it talks about Wayside School crashing down because it is so tall.

A reviewer

I think that the stories from waside school is an awsome book.I enjoyed reading the book and my friends did too. My school library had the wayside story books and when my teacher was reading the books to the class everyone wanted to go and check out the book because they wanted to read along with my teacher. I loved the book!

way side school rocks!!!

This book was asome .I love the stories of way side school.It is so cool how I'm so attached because i'm not a big fan of reading books.

Students love it!

I know everyone has said it, but here goes: I love it! This book is so interesting and funny it captures readers, right from the first page. It captures reluctant readers mostly because of its humour, but also because each chapter is a short story. This is especially good for children with short attention spans. In order to understand the next chapter, the children don't have to remember what happened it the previous one. As a teacher, I used this book for my class read-aloud in grade 6, as well as readers theatre! The kids also had fun creating a new student that would fit in at Wayside school. They loved it. Even though it's a Grade 4 book, the sixth graders had so much fun with it!

Wayside school

While Sherry was sleeping she fell out of the window and down nineteenth floors. The title of the book is Side way Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sacker. This book is about a class that had a teacher that was a witch. Then they got a teacher that was perfectly normal. The kids in her class weren¿t that normal. The setting is in the wayside school during the school day. In every chapter it talks about a students problem so they try and solve each problem thought out the book. I thought that this book was an interesting because it has a lot of problems. Also because it is a quick read. In the book each chapter is about a kids problem. There is one kid that gets sent home on the kindergarten bus every day. Also there was a kid who fell out of the window when she was sleeping. One kid got stuck to his seat after a girl stuck a huge blob of gum on the seat. I would recommend this book to anybody who likes quick read books. I would recommend a teacher that teaches fourth or fifth grade to read the book to their class. I say that because the kids in this book are in fourth grade. I would also recommend this book to somebody who doesn¿t like to read a lot at a time. The chapters are really short so you don¿t have to read a lot at a time. It took me about a week to read this book. Each chapter is about four pages long.

weird side from wayside

Mrs. Gorf had a long tong and pointed ears. She was the meanest teacher in all of Wayside School. She warned the children that she would turn them into apples if they did anything. Was Mrs.Gorf a witch? No one knows .My book is called Sideways stories from Wayside school by Louis Sachar. Some of my favorite stories were about two kids .Sharie was a girl who weighed forty-nine pounds and she wore a big, red and blue, and fury coat. Her eye lashes weighed a pound and a half. All together she weighed eighty-five and a half pounds. Paul had the best seat in Mrs.Jewls class, he sat in the way back where nothing was heard , seen, or even smelled. He got the erg to pull girls hair. He always pulled Leslies big long smooth pigtails. One day he wanted to pull them more than anything. Paul grabbed her pigtails and yanked as hard as he could. Well what did you think so far? I think this book is so funny. They just have the weirdest kids who have funny attitudes.Mrs.Jewls is a nice and funny teacher. When she first met the kids she was scared they would be too cute, so cute the would look like monkeys. Why? I don¿t know. The author of the book was one of the characters . He described him self with a red face, a mustache of many, many colors. He was known as Louis the yard teacher. He told many crazy stories about Wayside School to the children that were very funny. I would recommend this book to people who love comedy and weird stories. The comedy are the funny parts. The weird thing about this book are the children and their lives. When Mrs.Gorf was a teacher she turned kids into apples in a weird way. Read this book if you want to find out more.

Disappointing!

The book I am reviewing is Sideway Stories from Wayside School written by Louis Sacher. I think this book deserves only two stars because it isn¿t that funny and I like books that make me laugh. This book is about every student in Mrs. Jewel¿s class. Mrs. Jewels is the teacher. One of the problems in this book is that one kid in Mrs. Jewel¿s class doesn¿t know how to count, so his teacher tells him to count his hair. The next day he does. Another problem is that Mrs. Jewels finds a dead rat in Sammy¿s coat. She is so angry that she throws the rat out the window. I would not recommend this book to a friend.

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