Sideways Stories From Wayside School by Louis Sachar was one of my favorite books growing up.

I read it to the kids and it wasn’t as magical and hilarious as I remember. It’s still fun and definitely quirky, but it’s also disjointed and sometimes just weird (dead rats?).

It makes me wonder how much of my enjoyment came because one of my teachers read it to us and those books always seem to be better?

It was also written 35 years ago and what was considered off-beat and quirky back then is pretty tame today. We have a lot weirder and more off-beat now, so it seems like a halfway approach.

It could also be that I’m no longer 8 and don’t laugh at the same stuff.