Sideways Stories from Wayside School
Thirty connected stories introduce the students and teachers on the thirtieth floor of a school accidentally built upward instead of sideways.
- First published
- 1978
- Reading stage
- For older children
Reading this with your child
One floor and one child at a time
Most chapters spotlight a particular student, rule or impossible event. A reader can stop after one story, but recurring classmates reward remembering who was introduced earlier.
Literal logic produces the jokes
Wayside's adults and children often follow a rule to an absurd conclusion: reading upside down, impossible counting, or a teacher's supernatural discipline. Ask which ordinary school expectation has been twisted in each chapter.
The silliness sometimes turns sharp
The first teacher turns children into apples and receives a similarly startling fate; other chapters use insults, threats and surreal consequences. Penguin Random House recommends the series for roughly ages seven to thirteen, but tone sensitivity matters more than the cartoonish premise.
Compare before choosing: Choose Wayside for many surreal classroom episodes and independent chapter reading; choose Miss Nelson for one concise visual mystery about a class and its substitute. View the comparison title →
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