Sideways Stories From Wayside School (1978)

Sideways Stories from Wayside School is a 1978 children's short story cycle novel by American author Louis Sachar, and the first book in the Wayside School series.

The novel was later adapted into a Teletoon animated series, Wayside.

Setting

The story takes place in the fictional Wayside School, a school that was meant to be built one story tall with 30 classrooms all in a row, but was instead built 30 stories tall with a single classroom on each floor, save for the nonexistent nineteenth story. The book is primarily set in Mrs. Jewls' class, which is located on the thirtieth story of Wayside School, and each chapter focuses on a different student or teacher at the school.

Chapters

1. Mrs. Gorf

This chapter introduces the classroom on Wayside School's 30th floor. Their teacher, a strict woman named Mrs. Gorf, turns her students into apples if they misbehave even slightly, or answer a problem wrong. At times, Louis the yard teacher visits and assumes that Mrs. Gorf must be an excellent teacher if so many children give her apples. Mrs. Gorf eventually turns all the students into apples, but the students, led by Todd, force her to change them back into humans. She gets angry and tries to turn them into apples again, but Jenny holds up a mirror in front of Mrs. Gorf, and Mrs. Gorf turns herself into an apple. Louis then comes in, sees the apple, and—unaware that it is actually Mrs. Gorf—shines it up on his shirt, and eats it.

2. Mrs. Jewls

Mrs. Jewls becomes the new teacher after Mrs. Gorf is eaten. When Mrs. Jewls first sees her students, she figures that they must be monkeys, because Mrs. Jewls has never seen children so cute. After the students convince her that they are not monkeys, Mrs. Jewls begins teaching normally, though the students liked her original idea better.

3. Joe

Joe is a student who cannot count properly, but always ends up at the correct answer anyway. Mrs. Jewls holds him back during recess and attempts to teach him, but finds herself unable to do so. After recess, the other students make fun of Joe, but Mrs. Jewls reassures him that he will wake up one day and suddenly be able to count. Joe asks why he has to go to school, and Mrs. Jewls explains that school speeds it up; if he did not go to school, it could take him 70 years to learn, and by then he would have no hair. The next day, Joe wakes up and realizes he is indeed able to count correctly. Joe counts every hair on his head, totaling to 55,006.

4. Sharie

Sharie has big eyelashes and an oversized coat, and she tends to sleep through class. Mrs. Jewls does not care; she thinks students learn best when sleeping. One day in class, while sleeping, Sharie falls out the window. Louis saves her at the last moment.

5. Todd

Todd is a good student, but he always gets in trouble due to Mrs. Jewls' selectively enforcing the rules, as he was the first student to speak out loud in her class. Her class works on a three-strike system: first, the student's name is written on the board, then a checkmark is written next to it. Upon receiving a third strike, the name is circled, and the student is sent home early on the kindergarten bus. While working on his workbook, Todd is harassed by Joy, but gets punished for speaking out. Suddenly, robbers enter the classroom, having mistaken the building for a bank. Todd averts the situation by giving Joy's workbook to the robbers. Despite this, Todd is still sent home early on the kindergarten bus, though he receives a standing ovation upon leaving.

6. Bebe

Bebe Gunn is the "fastest draw" (quickest drawer) in class, able to draw pictures faster than anyone else. She can produce a picture of a cat in under 45 seconds, a dog in less than 30 seconds, and a flower in less than eight seconds. In one art class, with the assistance of Calvin, she makes 378 works of art in one hour. Mrs. Jewls tells her that the quality of art is more important than the quantity; in her words, if a single picture produced by a single person over the course of a lifetime is better than each of Bebe's pictures, the person with only one picture has produced more art than Bebe. Distraught, Bebe subsequently goes home to begin a picture of a cat; she indicates that she probably will have barely begun by the next day.

7. Calvin

Calvin is sent by Mrs. Jewls to deliver a nonexistent note to the nonexistent Miss Zarves on the nonexistent nineteenth floor. He consults Louis, who tells him that he is "not supposed to deliver no notes to no teachers". Upon returning to the 30th floor, Mrs. Jewls thanks a dumbstruck Calvin, who ultimately decides it was nothing.

8. Myron

Myron becomes class president, whose only job is to turn the lights on before everyone arrives and turn the lights off in the afternoon after everyone leaves. Myron, unsatisfied, wonders if there is more to being class president. Subsequently, he saves the life of Dana's dog Pugsy, but is demoted due to arriving late to class the next day. Stephen becomes the class president after Myron.

9. Maurecia

Maurecia eats ice cream every day for lunch. After Maurecia has tried all the ice cream flavors, she no longer likes ice cream. Mrs. Jewls decides to make ice cream flavors based on each student, which each taste differently to everyone but their namesake (who instead tastes "the flavor they taste when they aren't tasting anything"). Everyone likes Maurecia's flavor the best, but Maurecia likes Todd's the best.

10. Paul