Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Wayside School #3

Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger

Rate this book
Before you enter Wayside School, you should know that it’s a thirty-story building with one classroom on each floor. Mrs. Jewls teaches the class on the thirtieth story. Miss Zarves teaches the class on the nineteenth story—except there is no nineteenth story, so there is no Miss Zarves.

Understand? Good. Explain it to Calvin.

More than fifteen million readers have laughed at the clever and hilarious stories of Wayside School. So what are you waiting for? Come visit Wayside School! Kids 7 to 13 will zoom through these chapter books—laughing their way through the fast, funny, silly but relatable stories.

176 pages, Paperback

First published April 27, 1995

About the author

Louis Sachar

85 books4,114 followers
Louis Sachar (pronounced Sacker), born March 20, 1954, is an American author of children's books.

Louis was born in East Meadow, New York, in 1954. When he was nine, he moved to Tustin, California. He went to college at the University of California at Berkeley and graduated in 1976, as an economics major. The next year, he wrote his first book, Sideways Stories from Wayside School .

He was working at a sweater warehouse during the day and wrote at night. Almost a year later, he was fired from the job. He decided to go to law school. He attended Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.

His first book was published while he was in law school. He graduated in 1980. For the next eight years he worked part-time as a lawyer and continued to try to write children's books. Then his books started selling well enough so that he was able to quit practicing law. His wife's name is Carla. When he first met her, she was a counselor at an elementary school. She was the inspiration behind the counselor in There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom . He was married in 1985. Hisdaughter, Sherre, was born in 1987.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
10,878 (48%)
4 stars
6,657 (29%)
3 stars
3,756 (16%)
2 stars
734 (3%)
1 star
296 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 759 reviews
Profile Image for karen.
4,006 reviews172k followers
January 3, 2019
fulfilling my vow to read all the sequels i never knew existed to books i loved when i was little.

Miss Zarves taught the class on the nineteenth story. There is no nineteenth story. And there is no Miss Zarves.

You already know all that.

But how do you explain the cow in her classroom?


so, back in 2017 i decided to reread books i had loved when i was a little middle-grader, one for each month of the year. and while cheerfully on that path, i made a startling discovery: many of these beloved books o’ mine had sequels, some more than one. so i devoted 2018 to the one-a-month pursuit of reading these sequels because i do not like being left out of things just because i’m supposed to be an adult now.

but i hadn’t really done the math on it, and when i had finished november’s book (Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow, bunnicula #7) i realized i did not have a book lined up for december. and then jason came to my rescue and informed me that there was a THIRD book in the wayside school series and here we are.

wayside school.

i loved, loved Sideways Stories from Wayside School. it was one of the few books i read when i was little that scared me. not scared-scared, but that one about sammy - who was a smelly, rude child wearing layer after layer of smelly raincoats, and the teacher would remove one after the other and sammy would get smellier and smellier and smaller and smaller and jeer more loudly and more rudely until the last raincoat was removed and it turned out sammy was a dead rat. "WHAT IS THIS WORLD???" i bellowed. "HOW DOES THIS SHIT MAKE SENSE???" but it did and it was awesome and i loved the creepy shudders it gave me even as it broke my little brain in two.

but that’s the way of wayside - it’s a thirty-story school with one classroom per floor, minus the nineteenth floor. there is no nineteenth floor. it’s goofy and odd and sacher addresses the reader directly (which was not a common practice in the children’s books of my jeunesse), and it stood out from all the other kiddiebooks, leaving me feeling a complicated mixture of entertained and unsettled.

i don’t really remember the second one, Wayside School Is Falling Down - i have a vague sense-memory of discovering it when i was a young-ish adult and being like “ANOTHER wayside book? radical!” reading it, and then moving on with my young, fresh life.

but i remember this one, because i just read it a week ago and even holiday madness and old age aren’t enough to erode my memories that quickly.

it’s the same wacky good time as the first one (and presumably the second, if one could remember). there are many returning characters, and even though i read wayside a hundred and seventy-five years ago, it all came flooding back to me, and i remembered them. i really did read that first book a ridiculous amount of times.

i say ‘wacky good time,’ but it’s a wacky good time with a streak of cruelty running through it; mind-reading teachers who use their gifts in sadistic ways to humiliate students, teachers who steal voices, or keep grudges for a REALLY long time, psychiatrists who use hypnotism for highly unprofessional pranks, principals who need to learn when the intercom is still on, etc. although, with a name like mr. kidswatter, you shouldn’t be expecting a saint. other notable teacher names: miss nogard, mr. gorf, mrs. drazil. why no ms. adnapder??

my favorite from this book is A Story with a Disappointing Ending. it’s like the buildup to a sneeze.

anyway, now i have finished this project and *sniff* it is a very emotional time! GOODBYE, CHILDHOOD!

come to my blog!
Profile Image for Philip.
1,019 reviews301 followers
February 25, 2016
Dad: Eleanor (the other kids will probably be here in a minute), did I tell you that this one was my favorite of the 3 Wayside books?

Eleanor: Yeah... I think so... This might be my favorite of the 3 Wayside books, too.

D: Why is that, El?

E: Um. Because. Because I like that Mrs. Jewls

D: I'm going to put a spoiler around that, ok?

E: Ok. It's just hard because my favorite part's at the end...

D: Gwennie, did you know this was my favorite of the 3 Wayside books?

Gwennie (excited): OOOOOoooooo! NOOoooooO!

El: What's your favorite of the 3 Wayside books?

Gwennie? Ummm.... Let me think... Um. My. Faaaavorite. is... Is... Um... Sideways Stories From Wayside School?

Dad: The first one?

Gwennie: Yeah.

D: I LOVED, LOVED, LOOOVED the chapter called "Ears," and then every chapter after that one.

E: I liked the last chapter. My favorite part was the last chapter.

G: Yeah! Mine too.

D: I liked the play on words with the title of the book.

E: I didn't realize it was a play on words.

D: Think about it. Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger as in more strange.

Poppy: I THINK IT WAS FIVE! I THINK IT WAS FIVE!!! I THINK IT WAS FIIIIIIIVE!

D: Five stars?

Poppy: Yeah.

El: Do you think it's five stars, Gwen?

Gwen: Yeah.

P: My favorite part is when he pulled her ears.

E: You mean when Paul pulled Leslie's pigtails, and when they were snakes?

P: YEAH!!! That was my favorite part!

D: Gwen, what was your favorite part?

G: My favorite part was when Mrs. Jewls came back, and when

D: Hey! Did you know that was the same thing Eleanor said before you came into the room?

G: *rising in pitch* Noooooo...

D: As a kid, I always wanted the power that Miss Nogard had, and I didn't even know about Professor Xavier. ...In hindsight, I probably should have.

E: What do you mean by that?

D: What do you mean, what do I mean?

E: I mean what do you mean you had the same power Miss Nogard had?

D: I said, I WANTED the same power Miss Nogard had.

E: Dad. Why would you want that? Why would you want to break people's hearts?

D: . ...?

E: Or do you mean you wished you could read people's brains?

D: Which one do you think.

E: (realizing): You wished you could read people's brains.

D: Of course. Do you wish you had that power?

E: Sometimes.

G: Sometimes. Then I would... You know. When... You know the game when you have to think what they're saying? The guessing game? ...Then I would win every round of it.

E: Yeah.

P: Yeah. (laughing)

E: I would recommend this book to people. ...Dad, did you know that I say that on Every. Single. Review. ...?

D: I did realize that. I think that's because we're only reading really, really good books.
Profile Image for Jenny.
101 reviews14 followers
September 10, 2011
I remember getting my copy of Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger from the Scholastic Book Club and getting really excited because the cover glowed in the dark! But this isn’t the same cover. In this book, we get to learn more about Louis the Yard Teacher such as how his mean teacher tormented him and he even gets a little love story. A cute scene is when the kids are giving Louis advice about how to win a women over like telling her she’s got eyes like the moon or bringing her candy and flowers. I like Eric Bacon’s advice most of all which is how I like to do it: go up to her and say “Hey, baby! How about a date?”

Instead of each chapter being about a different kid there are a few chapters dedicated to developing longer storylines and while I like the longer storylines, it also takes away from the vignettes that reveal more about each kid. A few chapters also didn’t do anything for me but this book is sweeter than the others. Be sure to shut the goozack while you’re reading this because you may laugh out loud. And if you don’t like it, you can “rub a monkey’s tummy with your head!”
Profile Image for martha.
576 reviews67 followers
Read
February 24, 2021
[2021 update(!)] By virtue of being basically the only book at this reading level I already owned, this is officially the first chapter book my oldest kid is reading on his own. Which, um, might not be the most appropriate introduction to literary independence for a 5-year-old. But might also be perfect???

[2005 review.] Another book I loved from childhood but didn't remember much about. It's aged a bit younger than some of his other stuff -- Holes and There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom. It's so meta and postmodern -- he writes himself into the book as a character! And this is totally a gateway drug for surreal, silly literature.
Profile Image for Derek L..
Author 16 books15 followers
November 5, 2021
I have to say this is my favorite out of the (now) four-book series. Each of the chapters had me laughing and reminiscing about when I first read, when I first re-read, and so on! Haha this was a series I adored when I was a kid and I think these books still hold up well.

What I really enjoyed about this third book were the quirky adults. You still have characters like Mrs. Jewls and Principal Kidswatter that have peculiar personalities, but then you have characters like Ms. Drazil and Mr. Gorf, who are both equally amusing and hilarious.

I'm looking forward to reading the newest book!
Profile Image for Juliana.
825 reviews1 follower
March 11, 2020
This is my first time reading this book. Not sure why I never read it but now I'm glad that I did. There's more of a linear story line to this book more than the others. The first book introduces us to the characters and has little antidotes to them, the second book continues with that, and this one expands the universe. The kids on the 30th floor seem to have the same luck with teachers as Hogwarts did with Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers! Each one is weird in some way. Mrs. Jewls is a quirky teacher but she is gone for most of the book so the kids go through a few different substitutes. The story as a whole was funnier, seemed a little bit more grown up, and it was just as entertaining as the first two. Another great addition to the Wayside School series!
5 reviews
September 9, 2017
Wayside School gets a Little Stranger


Wayside school is a thirty floor building with no nineteenth floor. Mrs. Zarves teaches on the nineteenth floor .There is no Mrs. Zarves. Understand? Good.
Wayside School gets a Little Stranger is a creative and comical book about a teacher named Ms.Jewls and her class. In the story, Ms.Jewls gets pregnant, and the class gets many substitutes, along with many adventures.
I recommend this book to ages 6-11, though adults will find it just as comical. This book contains confusing language and a childish vocabulary.
May 7, 2014
Here is my book I'm going to tell you about it is called Wayside school gets a little stranger. It's about a school that has to shut down for awhile to have repairs done on it. Some of the children would come by and look at the sign that was hang up on the door then they would just walk away from it. Louis the janitor would watch the kids come and go then he would get back to work on the school. When ever the school finally closed for awhile the children were sent to other school for awhile tell their were fixed. At last two hundred and forty-three days came and the school finally opened back up. So then Louis the janitor took the sign off the school doors where the kids could come back to school. Mrs.Jewls come over the internet com and said welcome back students and teachers. Then the children return from Christmas vacation and on there desk in one of their class there was two knitting needles and a hunk of yarn. Everyone just stared at there teacher then she said to the children that she wants everyone to make a pair socks for someone or themselves. Dameon looked back at his needle and hunk of yarn and said I don't have a clue how to do this. Mrs. Jewls cleared her throat and stood up and stared walking around the room and said very nice D.J. she said also said your doing wonderful to Rondi. Then she stared walking again and stopped at joes and gushed. She said everybody I want to show you joes sock isn't the most beautiful sock you ever seen before.


I really like this book even though I didn't get to finish it all. I just like the charotors acting out. I would have to say that I would reckumen people to read this and just see how they like as much as I did.
Profile Image for Ceecee.
254 reviews58 followers
December 30, 2012
Weird, illogical, goofy and crazy, Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger is hilarious . It's just the kind of book which tickles my funny bone because it's just so, well, strange .

Your school consists of 30 stories, each story with only one classroom, and the elevator only goes up but never down. Wait, don't forget that there's no nineteenth floor but you could swear you can hear cows from there.. Your dentist is a hypnotist, and your substitute teacher has 3 nostrils. God, I just loved the craziness of it all.

Each chapter is a vignette, but some come together to form a story. It's okay if you didn't read the first 2 books, I think it just added to the hilarity. And you know what, amidst the goofiness of it all, there was something sweet and something profound inserted in between the pages, which is the kind of thing I admire in Louis Sachar's works.

Its humour isn't for everybody (one of my friends couldn't appreciate what made this book so funny to me), but I don't really care. I'm a weirdo and this book is for me.
Profile Image for T.J..
Author 1 book127 followers
June 8, 2008
From the moment you hear Mr. Gorf (whose voice is described as a braying donkey's with a French accent) say, "Mrs. Gorf was my mommy..." You know this book's gonna be horrifically AWESOME.

Continuing the awesomeness where the previous two books left off, the Waysiders are back, post-cow, and are ready for more craziness. Another great read, and hilarious to boot. There is an extraordinarily evil substitute with a third, psychic ear, and our usual visit to Miss Zarves on the Nineteenth Floor.

Um, I mean, there is no Nineteenth Floor. There is No Miss Zarves. Get it? Now explain it to me.
Profile Image for Meredith.
2,007 reviews18 followers
February 18, 2011
I love this book, but I find myself missing Mrs. Jewls while reading it. Still, the chapter about pets is one of the funniest things ever, and it's always good to hear more about Louis. Not my favorite Wayside School book, but that's like saying it's not my favorite kind of candy. It's still delicious, even if I like the others better.
Profile Image for Rachel B.
949 reviews59 followers
May 18, 2020
3.5

I love the Wayside books. They're some of the funniest, silliest books available for kids.

This one focuses more on the substitute teachers in Mrs. Jewls' class than on the kids, and I just didn't love it as much as I did the first two.
Profile Image for Bronwyn.
792 reviews70 followers
September 20, 2023
Galen finished September 20, 2023

“I give it three stars because of chapter 26, Never Laugh at a Shoelace, because they were talking about Howard. When they glued the shoes to his feet… a layer of skin would come off.”

I mean… can’t argue with that.
8 reviews
Read
March 4, 2020
It is interesting with the different teachers and how they taught
Profile Image for Kris.
3,497 reviews70 followers
January 23, 2023
I've been reading this series with my 10-year old, and I think I love his utter amazement with the different ways the author surprises him and makes him laugh the most. The story that only makes sense backwards? He was stunned - "You can do that?!" well, most people wouldn't, but yeah. That's why it is clever and funny. He was also very relieved that author and yard teacher Louis is still alive. Let's hope that he decides Wayside School needs a fifth book because the idea of the next one being the last one I get to read with my Sam makes me sad.
Profile Image for Adele.
932 reviews27 followers
February 4, 2021
This one gets a little dark and the ending isn't quite as satisfying as the previous books, but still some really fun chapters.
Profile Image for Schaeffer.
22 reviews
August 11, 2024
Read this in two days with my step son. We were cracking up the entire time and are starting the series from the beginning soon!
Profile Image for Declan.
16 reviews8 followers
Read
April 10, 2020
I like this book. It's weird and zany, and doesn't have a plot or really a theme. It's just about how weird a 30 story school can be. I can think of a theme for one of the characters, though. The theme of Wendy, one of the substitutes with 3 ears, is to never give up, and be willing to change.
Profile Image for Ashley.
1,582 reviews30 followers
October 15, 2014
I had originally planned on reading all three Wayside books as close together as possible, but that kind of petered out. I think that it might be because the last two were missing the nostalgia factor the first holds for me.

I really like how clever these books are, like you kind of have to pay attention because sometime the setup is in one chapter, and the payoff is a few chapters later. And the chapter with the pets was pretty neat, naturally I had to read it a second time to make sense of it.
19 reviews
September 18, 2015
This book is amazing! Most of the time it made me laugh. It is not a long book it is just 168 pages, but only like 2 pages didn't make me laugh. So it is a pretty funny book. Even though it is only 168 pages you will still know their names because you cant just forget. I don't laugh at a lot of stuff, but this book made me laugh so hard that I almost peed in myself. Also, it really good illustrations.
31 reviews
February 8, 2016
I thought the book was great and it had a lot of detail and it explained every movement a character made and I cant wait to read the next edition.It was also cool because the school was really high and it was hard for the students to go downstairs and play.
138 reviews1 follower
November 22, 2023
My daughter really likes this series and enjoyed this book, although I think some things went over her head. Personally I enjoyed reading this one more than Wayside School Is Falling Down. It seemed more fun.
18 reviews1 follower
November 19, 2015
This book is so great. I really can't help but laughing whenever I read the chapter with all the pets in it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 759 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.