You'll get yours, bitch
The most terrifying experience I had as a second-grader was reporting to the raspy-voiced school librarian that I had accidentally left a mustard stain on the pages of Louis Sachar’s Sideways Stories from Wayside School. I’d been eating a hotdog well rereading the book for the tenth time, and a big glop had splattered across a page. “If it stinks, I’ll charge you for the book. If it doesn’t, we won’t worry about it,” she rasped (lost my thesaurus today), and then put her nose into the folds.
It didn’t stink, and my permanent record remained as unstained as the other non-mustard stained books in the library.
Now, if she had been a character from Wayside, the librarian would’ve immediately turned me into an apple, or had me stand on my head to read the book again, or banish me to the 19th floor (which doesn’t exist). The book follows the exploits of a class of children who attend Wayside school, a 30-story building that was supposed to be built on the ground, but was instead built skyward. There are 30 chapters, called “stories” (get it?) that each follow a kid or teacher or administrator.
Artist's Rendition (NOTE: Not drawn to scale. Thanks a lot, Kylie)
The book makes this list for two reasons. Reason the first: it’s hilarious. Each story is weird enough to make you go “hmmmmm” while also making you go “HAAAA!” There are the three Erics, who are wildly different, yet constantly confused for each other. Mac and Nancy, a girl and boy, respectively, who trade names. The teacher Mrs. Gorf, who turns bad kids into apples. Todd, who gets sent home early every day on the kindergarten bus for the most trivial of transgressions. And so on; each story is funny in the weird, altered way that children have of looking at the world. Perhaps a side…way?
Wrong type of sideways, assholes
Reason the second: the book has metafictional details all over it, ones that seem obvious and hilarious to a child, but can be appreciated as masterfully done by us upstanding, literary-minded adults. For example, Louis Sachar inserts himself into the story as a playground aide, named Louis, a job he held in real life before becoming an author. The student Kathy is so odious that she hates everyone in class, including YOU, the reader. There are frequent references to the 19th story, and the class held there by Miss Zarves, but, as is frequently mentioned, there is no 19th story. There is no Miss Zarves.
There is no spoon, either
Sideways Stories is a trip through a school carnival funhouse–simple enough to enjoy at face value for the laughs and pokes, but with a disturbing layer underneath, one that could make you question the nature of storytelling, and of existence, if you look deeply enough. It introduces the reader to the idea that even the simplest, most mundane of routines, like going to school every day, can be filled with magic, wonder, danger, and dead rats dressed up as students.
Plus, it’d be a fun place to go to school. They have kickball. And I ruled at kickball.
Unlike this lady, who rules at neither kickball nor fashion
chroniclesofamisfit 