It was kinda creepy when that girl got stuck on the 19th floor with Ms. Zarves with all the imaginary students, and there were three straight Chapter 19s.

I think the best one was when the new kid showed up in class wearing a massive number of overcoats.

Okay, so just these short mentions alone have me intrigued.

Dude yes I forgot abt the overcoats! I also liked Sheri, who weighed like 90 lbs., and her coat weighed 60, and her left eyelashes weighed 5 lbs., and her left eyelashes weighed 5 lbs., and her hair weighed like 10. And she kept falling out of the window while sleeping for Louis to catch her.

I also like when the girl w/the pigtails tried to sell her toes to Louis, who just wanted to buy the pinkie toes.

I also LOVE when Joe tries to learn how to count potatoes. “A thousand, a million, THREE!”

*reads up on Louis Sachar some more* It is a great pity Edward Gorey didn’t illustrate these things.

I also love when (Mac?) brings a hobo for his show and tell.

Fuck yeah, Ned, if Gorey did Freaky fucking Friday he could’ve illustrated 30 children turning into monkeys.

These books are all great, and “Holes” is great too, and Louis Sachar is a very great American writer.

if Gorey did Freaky fucking Friday

Good lord, I had forgotten about that. And gladly too.

Louis Sachar does humor and piognancy alike very masterfully. I loved how bittersweet There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom was.

WAYSIDE SCHOOL ROOLZ. Kathy is my favorite.

What is with all these threads suddenly appearing & making me miss elementary school so very much?

I do like his official FAQ, you get a sense of both his dedication and his practicality, not to mention the humor. Nice, he does sound like one of the good guys.

Also, his story of growing up in OC for a time has the deep ring of truth:

When I was nine years old, we moved to Tustin California. At that time, there were orange groves all around, and the local kids would often divide up into teams and have orange fights. The “ammo” hung from the trees, although the best ones were the gushy, rotten ones on the ground. Now most of the orange trees are gone, replaced with fast food restaurants, and big box stores.

what was the missing floor of the school? 17?

19!

Also Sherle weighed 49 pounds and brought a hobo for show and tell.

I was given the puzzle books once but they were way too hard, or I was way too dumb.

The puzzle book was really hard, but it’s been since 3rd grade that I had a crack at it.

I am embarrassed about my mistakes since I used to have these books memorized.

Aw, thx for the FAQ hook Ned...it never occurs to me to look stuff up about authors.

I forgot all about his Marvin Redpost books. The only one I recall thoroughly involved them finding an old hippie/beatnik in a forgotten cave and then making a fortune off the guano in there.

Oops, nevermind, I am thinking of some crazy series about two boy adventurers by Gary Paulsen. The Marvin Redpost books were actually kind of boring.

I was totally stumped by Sideways Arithmetic. elf + elf = fool WAHT??? But basically I feel like anyone who read these books as a kid must have turned out decent.

I definitely had the sideways arithmetic one. And cracked most of it, too.

I haven’t read these since grade school, but they were really great to read back then. Wasn’t there one where a story about a guy throwing up was written backwards? And one where the pigtails starting talking to the guy in class staring at them?

For the school paper, i have this column where I interview somebody who we used to idolize in our youth. A week ago, I looked up Sachar on a whim. I found a number, called it and he answered. He was really nice/interesting and let me interview him on the spot! The only bad point was when I tried to get a funny response by asking what projects he wasn’t working on (see his FAQ for why). He wouldn’t answer. Other than that, though, the interview went well.

! Heck, share that thing when it’s ready.

I think I must’ve read this book about 20 times in 3rd and 4th grade. I spent most of the time trying to wrap my head around the logistics of a 30-story building with one room on each floor.

sideways arithmetic took me a really, really long time to figure out, too