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Health & Fitness

Sideways and Silly

Do you read with your kids? Here's a great book to read with them until they can read it to you!

By Diane Gornell, Teacher-Librarian

Do you love to laugh out loud with your kids? Then this post is for you. I highly recommend picking up a wacky and wild book by Louis Sachar called Sideways Stories from Wayside School. It’s a great one to read to children at bedtime or let older children read on their own. Either way, you’ll want to gobble it up too so you and the kids can enjoy its fun together.

Here’s the gist of the book: Instead of being built with 30 classrooms all on one floor, Wayside School was built with only one classroom on 30 floors. Each of the 30 brief chapters is about a Wayside teacher or student…all of them STRANGE.

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In and among the silliness, Sacher weaves in some important life lessons along with math problems. For example, Dana can’t do the math lesson because she itches all over from mosquito bites. Her teacher, Mrs. Jewls, tells her that “doing arithmetic is the best known cure for an itch” and begins asking the students questions such as “How much is five mosquito bites times two?” and “How much is six mosquito bites minus two?”

The meanest teacher in the school, Mrs. Gorf, has a long tongue, pointed ears and likes apples better than children. She has a habit of wiggling her ears, one at a time, at the children and turning any ‘troublemakers’ into apples.

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You can almost assuredly find this book at your local library, along with many of the other children’s books that Sachar wrote, including Holes which was turned into a movie. But those who like to own their own copies can find Sideways Stories from Wayside School at most brick and mortar bookstores, on iBooks, on Amazon.com in paperback (both new and used) and in Kindle form, and on BarnesandNoble.com in both paperback and Nook form.

And remember, if you use your local public library it’s sure to have many excellent programs for all ages.

Happy Reading!

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