WAYSIDE SCHOOL GETS A LITTLE STRANGER

For most kids, school is a place of order, rules, and predictability. In WAYSIDE SCHOOL GETS A LITTLE STRANGER, Louis Sachar brings us another joyous, totally unpredictable year at Wayside School, where there are 30 floors, with only one classroom on each floor, and where the rules insist that students go upstairs on the right side, and downstairs on the left! When Mrs. Jewls, the fifth-grade teacher, leaves to have her baby, the kids go through a series of substitutes, each one a little stranger than the one before. As his own narrator, Sachar starts off with a slow, almost monotone quality, as if to undercut the absurdity of the plot. Slowly, he loosens up and lets his characters come to life, and we begin to recognize the various kids--Louis, the custodian; the principal; even the different substitutes--as he gives them their own individual voices, changing tone, speech patterns, even the timbre of his voice. His irreverent wit constantly catches us off-guard. Kids will love his outlandish stories while adults will appreciate the satire. W.L.S. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 01]