Book Review: Sideways Stories from Wayside School

“You need a reason to be sad. You don't need a reason to be happy.” 


You know how there are those books that everyone else seemed to read when they were a child, but for some reason or another, you never did?  Well, Sideways Stories from Wayside School was one of those for me. As I browsed the Children's Lit section at the library today, this is one that popped out to me.  I was in for a quickie read for the afternoon, so I read it.




The Wayside School was built sideways.  It was supposed to have thirty rooms on one floor, but got built as thirty floors with one room each.  But that's not all that is a little bit off about this school.  This book is the stories of the children of the thirtieth floor.

 At first, I was not into it.  I just don't understand absurdist art, I guess.  I thought it was crazy when I first learned about it from Ionesco, and it's just continued.  And this book was kind of just that same thing.  I wasn't diggin' it.  But then I changed my thinking pattern.  I don't remember exactly when in the story, but I did. And found out that this may be the first time in my experience with the absurdist that I started to get it. 

The stories are silly.  But they are so on-point at the same time.  The student that the teacher just decides is bad and gets in trouble every day, no matter what he does is real.  And there always is that kid who the teacher decides is good and even when she is awful, she doesn't get in trouble.  If only we could step into the skins of hyper-ish kids and realize that they fought really, really hard to not pull those pigtails, but they just couldn't help it. And if only we could fix dyslexic kids by flipping them upside down.  And sometimes, you get the right answer, but you're wrong because of the way you got there, but when you do it the teacher's way, you are wrong because of the answer, but right because of the method.  The absurdity wasn't the Wayside School.  The absurdity is the way that we, as adults, see the world of children and make them fit into our little pigeon-holes and make assumptions about them and their motivations. 

Louis Sachar somehow channeled the inner child.  And not just their happiness.  But their frustrations and their limitations and everything else about children.

And I started to realize that it is pretty genius, actually.  Five Stars.

Comments

Amy R said…
I have never read this one either. I guess now would be a good time. You have inspired me.
October 22, 2014 at 4:50 AM
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