Buy: Sideways Stories from Wayside School Depravity
“Wayside School was supposed to be 30 classrooms, one story high; but by mistake it was built straight up 30 stories. (The builder said he was sorry.)”
Remember…remember when…remember when they were in the school, and, um, the Louis the Yard Teacher, um, had an afro? That was awesome. (Sorry, that Chris Farley joke really doesn’t translate well into writing. And yet I won’t stop…)
Remember the first chapter? Before Ms. Jewls was on the 30th floor, writing kids’ names under the Discipline line, there was Mrs. Gorf. This is the only excerpt I could find, but it’s a memorable one.
Most of the time, SSFWS was pretty unsettling. Not just that Louis eats that teacher. But everything is painted as completely chaotic…there is not even a hint of moralizing or axe grinding—at all. I know that’s the def of good art, and good comedy… but doesn’t it make you feel, like, empty? Maybe even a little sad?
Sachar is a master! I think the ability to do that is…well…I’m really jealous. These are not just kids’ short stories, but truly are works of art.
Maybe if we concentrated on a mass distribution of the book to Park Slope, those peoples’ babies would all read them, and the law schools would be less crowded? Woah. Work voice, C-$, work voice.
Apparently he’s written a lot of books since, twenty others. I did this whole series (even the one where stories combined with arithmetic made learning fun!), but haven’t looked into anything else, me being twenty-three (”A book a month? That would take me a year!”).
Also he looks like Larry David. Props to Sachar! Props to David!
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3 Comments, Comment or Ping
I LOVED those books, but was also always kind of disturbed by them. Like remember when they had that teacher that stole their voices through her nose or whatever, and then used their voices to tell their parents they hated them, etc etc? Freaked me out.
They should make smart, artsy movies for every book he’s written. Buy!
And the 30 story tall classroom/building I also thought would be really annoying to get around (not to mention, impossible to avoid people). And a FIRE HAZARD!
I was once the henchman of LS’s literary agent, Ellen Levine. I have spoken with him on the phone numerous times. Ellen’s old accountant always said to be especially careful with Sachar’s royalty statements, since “Louis has eagle eyes” and, for an author so lucrative, the tiniest mistake can mean a lot of misplaced money.
One of the things that I used to do when I had that job was call up publishing houses and demand that they pay us money, when they had either forgotten to or had to tried to be some creative accounting with the royalty statements. I especially enjoyed calling on behalf of LS, because children’s authors have a moral authority that is tough to match.
That is, I got to act like they had busted Mother Theresa’s kneecaps whenever I henched on LS’s behalf. Thanks, LS, for letting me have those memories which are indirectly related to your enormous income.
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