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Sideways Stories from Wayside School, by Louis Sachar, narrated by Louis Sachar, 2008, New York, NY: Penguin Audio. 2 hours and 26 minutes.
Age/Interest Level: 7-10 years
Lexile Level: 460L
Awards: N/A
Reader Annotation: Wayside School was built on a mistake: Thirty stories high instead of thirty rooms long. Ever since, things have just been getting stranger and stranger.
Plot Summary: Wayside School was mistakenly built thirty stories high instead of thirty rooms long. On the thirtieth floor, Mrs. Jewls teaches with some pretty unorthodox methods, though she’s a lot better than the previous teacher, Mrs. Gorf, who used to turn students into apples. Each chapter of the book represents one of the strange occurrences that happen both inside the classroom on the thirtieth floor and around the school. Jason gets stuck to his seat by a wad of gum. A filthy kid named Sammy turns out to actually be a rat. Joe can only count backwards. Life’s certainly on an angle at Wayside School.
Critical Evaluation: Louis Sachar is a great storyteller with a mind to the absurd. While he writes about completely unbelievable situations, he does so with infallible logic. Since this book is really a series of vignettes, it is best served when read aloud. The added benefit of the audiobook version is that Louis Sachar himself provides the recording, and he reads it with the flair of an author who knows exactly where all of the phrases should sit. It’s a careful recording that punches the jokes while acting as though the situations were perfectly normal of any school. The result is a truly hilarious recording.
Why Included: For sheer humor, this piece works. The added benefit of actually hearing the author’s intention with the phrasing is a definite bonus and he provides a realness to some very silly situations.
Age/Interest Level: 7-10 years
Lexile Level: 460L
Awards: N/A
Reader Annotation: Wayside School was built on a mistake: Thirty stories high instead of thirty rooms long. Ever since, things have just been getting stranger and stranger.
Plot Summary: Wayside School was mistakenly built thirty stories high instead of thirty rooms long. On the thirtieth floor, Mrs. Jewls teaches with some pretty unorthodox methods, though she’s a lot better than the previous teacher, Mrs. Gorf, who used to turn students into apples. Each chapter of the book represents one of the strange occurrences that happen both inside the classroom on the thirtieth floor and around the school. Jason gets stuck to his seat by a wad of gum. A filthy kid named Sammy turns out to actually be a rat. Joe can only count backwards. Life’s certainly on an angle at Wayside School.
Critical Evaluation: Louis Sachar is a great storyteller with a mind to the absurd. While he writes about completely unbelievable situations, he does so with infallible logic. Since this book is really a series of vignettes, it is best served when read aloud. The added benefit of the audiobook version is that Louis Sachar himself provides the recording, and he reads it with the flair of an author who knows exactly where all of the phrases should sit. It’s a careful recording that punches the jokes while acting as though the situations were perfectly normal of any school. The result is a truly hilarious recording.
Why Included: For sheer humor, this piece works. The added benefit of actually hearing the author’s intention with the phrasing is a definite bonus and he provides a realness to some very silly situations.