Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger

Strange Strangers Come to Wayside School...

Welcome back to Wayside School! After closing for 242 days to get rid of the cows (don't ask), everyone's favorite thirty-story school is finally back in session.

But all is not well at the school with no nineteenth floor. Mrs. Jewls, the best teacher at Wayside, is having a baby, and that can mean only one thing—substitute teachers.

First comes Mr. Gorf. Was he married to the terrible Mrs. Gorf? And why does he have three nostrils? The kids won't tell you. They're not talking.

Then there's Mrs. Drazil. She never forgets a missed homework assignment, not even one that Louis the yard teacher owed her fifteen years ago.

By the time the class gets the fearsome Miss Nogard, the kids can't wait for everything to return to normal.

Wayside School may seem like a pretty strange place already, but now it has to get a little stranger.

Unusual things continue to happen in the classroom on the thirtieth floor of Wayside School, which was accidentally built sideways with one classroom on each story.

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Don't miss the fun at Wayside School--an elementary school with supernatural elements--built with one classroom on top of another, thirty stories high.

Publishers Weekly

Returning to the scene of Sideways Stories from Wayside School and Wayside School Is Falling Down, Sachar serves up 30 stories about the zany goings-on in his unorthodox 30-story-tall school. Sometimes silly, other times clever, the narrative revolves around the wacky substitute teachers who take Mrs. Jewls's place when she is on maternity leave. The kids on the 30th floor must contend with a fellow whose third nostril enables him to "suck" students' voices up his nose, and a rather sadistic woman whose third ear (hidden under her hair) gives her the power to read students' thoughts. The book's pace and punch seem to slacken midway through; the funniest vignettes (including the principal's caustic diatribe over the PA when he thinks the system is off and a parody of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas that questions Santa Claus's existence) are found in the first half. But this will hardly deter Wayside School devotees from turning the pages eagerly, awaiting the next twist of plot or play on words. Sachar's supply of both seems inexhaustible. Illustrations not seen by PW. Ages 8-up. (Apr.)

LOUIS SACHAR made history with Holes, which won every major children’s book award and was turned into a movie. He lives in Austin, Texas.