Sunday, May 25, 2008

Sideways Stories from Wayside School, by Louis Sachar

I am reading Sideways Stories from Wayside School to my kids and every night around supper time, Levi starts asking me if I will be reading that night. This is a first. He always likes to be read to, but this is the first book that is requesting me to read at night.

Sideways Stories from Wayside School is a wacky and silly book about the students and teachers at Wayside School. I have yet to find a kid who did not like to hear it read or read it. I started reading it to kids when I taught fourth grade and I loved reading it to them. There are 2 more books in the series which I have read, but not recently.

Louis Sachar is the author of Holes and it's sequel, Small Steps. Holes is one of my favorite books. He also wrote There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom. It is about a boy who doesn't fit in at school and a school counselor who develops a relationship with him and changes his life. I really enjoyed reading it. It was funny, honest, and touching.

Louis also has a series for beginning readers which is great. It is the Marvin Redpost series. It is written on the 2nd grad reading level, but is very interesting and funny. I enjoyed reading them. They are short chapter books about 40 pages long. Levi read 2 last night, and told me that the endings surprised him.


You can probably tell I am a huge Louis Sachar fan. His website tells about all of his books and has the script of an interview with him. I think I am going to read some of it to my kids.
We will probably be reading Small Steps soon, too.

3 comments:

Tiffany said...

I just wrote a long comment and somehow lost it! I'll try to remember what I wrote.

The Repertory Theatre is doing Holes as one of their plays next year. I definitely want to go see it. I loved that book. I didn't know there was a sequel out. I am going to have to read that soon. My kids have listened to Sideways Stories and really enjoyed it. The stories are so outrageous and funny! It would probably be fun to do that as a read aloud too. We have to finish Skippack School first!

Kirsten said...

I have never heard of him. I am always looking for books for Julia. Thanks for the tip.

Julie said...

So often when I go to comment on someone's blog, I get to the comment section and see that Tiffany has already said what I was going to say...in this case the Orlando Rep doing Holes next year.

I love to get new ideas for books, thanks!