Modern Fantasy- Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger By: Louis Sachar

This is the second installment of Louis Sachar's hilarious tale of the adventures of Wayside School. You can say that the children are coming off of a 243 day long vacation (that's how long it took to get rid of the cows) and are ready to start a new year. With every floor, which is only one classroom, there is a new adventure to be read and enjoyed. The food in the cafeteria can still be confused for toxic waste, make sure to stop by the pet fair on the 30th floor, and be careful when walking under the windows. You don't want to get hit by a coffeepot, and mess up Mrs. Drazil's science experiment. As usual, the real tale of the story begins and ends on Mrs. Jewls floor/room. Mrs. Jewls announces to her class that she is going to have a baby. They try to make the best of this news by brainstorming names for the baby. Which do you like better; Cootie Face or Bucket Head? What her class is not excited about is losing Mrs. Jewls while she is out with the baby. This means a substitute is coming, and you know that that cannot be good...

This is one of my favorite books of ALL time! It doesn't matter if I teach Kindergarten or 6th grade, my children will have this book read to them before they leave my room. It is so funny, and has lots of fun puzzles and mysteries for the children to solve while reading. This is a book that I know my children will get excited about reading, and by reading it, I will hopefully be encouraging them to find books that they enjoy to read. Activities that I would pair with reading this book are prediction worksheets, acting out scenes from the book, and of course letting them complete some of the fun activities (like the gravity experiment mentioned above) that these children do in their classroom.