Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger

Written by Louis Sachar

Illustrated by Adam McCauley

HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 2003

Genre: Children's Fiction; humor

Reading Level: Ages 9-12

168 pages

This Wayside School book is the third in the series, and just as entertaining and quirky as the other two. This one, because the students are all introduced, has more of a plot. It starts with the school finally opening after some construction and the students are really excited to finally get to come back after having been separated into other schools. The first few chapters are about a couple of school days where the students are learning how to do poetry, being introduced and hypnotized by a new character, Dr. Pickle, a bring your pet to school day, an argument about Santa Claus, and the students discover that their favorite teacher, Mrs. Jewls, is leaving to have a baby. While the students are happy for, they're sad to see her go and worried about the substitute that they will get. The book continues with them going through several substitute teachers; one seeking revenge, one with special powers, one who seemed nice but turned out to be evil, and the last one who had a bad attitude and three ears. Each teacher brought a different story and a different problem the students had to solve. The last one, Miss Nogard, with three ears, could hear the students thoughts and because she had had her heart broken she used this ability to cause the children pain and to humiliate them and turn them against each other. During Miss Nogard's reign, Mrs. Jewls comes back with her baby and as Miss Nogard holds it, her heart is changed because all she hears from its thoughts is pure love. In the end the children get their favorite teacher back and Miss Nogard gets a kiss from the outdoors teacher, Louis; who the students were trying to set her up with all along.

I would recommend this book, and the series, to any child who is looking for a laugh.

Similar to the first book, I feel the only real problem that could come from a child reading this book would be them copying one of the actions, or quirks of the students and it causing a problem for their parents. Otherwise i feel it is a harmless book.

I really enjoyed this book, almost better than the first one. Probably because the first one was really an introduction book to give a background of each of the characters while this one actually had a plot, conflict, and resolution. It was just more of a story.

My rating: 5 out of 5