I’ve talked here at The Bookworm Broadcast about how much I love the book, “Sideways Stories from Wayside School” and how excited I was (cautiously) that it was made into a television cartoon. There definitely was potential there, with all the goofy stories! As a bookworm, though, I have to admit it did make me nervous. As a perfect example of the way I feel about this, my town library once had a sign up that said, “Never judge a book by its movie”. I shared with you that I was pretty pleased with this book-into-TV transition. And I’m hopeful that at least some kids will be intrigued enough with the show to want to read the books! I can hope, right? Hey - I’ve always been that way - if I really, really like a movie/show, I want to read the book!

The basic story of this book is that The Wayside School was accidentally built 30 stories tall, with one classroom per floor, instead of one story tall, with 30 classrooms. The builder’s felt really bad about it and apologized a whole lot! On each floor of the building, in each classroom, is another crazy class - with another wacky tale to tell.

The main character, Todd, goes to school on the 30th floor and at recess time, he has to hurry as fast as he can to get down to the bottom floor, so that he can get one of the cherished playground balls from the janitor. It is first-come-first-serve and it’s hard to make it down all thirty floors quickly!

Todd’s teacher, Mrs. Jewl, not only allows the students to sleep - she encourages it! And when he tries to hand in his homework, he winds up in trouble - he gets detention or has to ride the kindergarten bus home!

The wackiness just goes on and on! So, while I definitely wondered if Wayside - The Cartoon could possibly measure up to the book, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised! They’ve added some things and taken some things out and it is, for sure, a different experience than the book. It is tons of fun, though! And the cool thing is that it is great fun for the whole family to watch! It is one of those cartoons that everyone in your family, no matter their age, will enjoy!

Wayside School: Season One definitely gets this bookworm’s seal of approval!

And just to appeal to my book-lovin’ heart, they actually included a copy of Sideways Stories from Wayside School with the DVD! Now, how cool is that?

Image via Wikipedia My sixth grader came home today with an interesting, and very tricky, sentence exercise that she had worked on in class. And now she is doing another one to try and ‘trick’ her teacher - as her teacher was not at all tricked by the one she did in class. I’m totally not making sense, am I?

Let me explain it. The kids had to write one main idea sentence and then write three supporting detail sentences. Once they had that done, they show someone their detail sentences and the person tries to figure out their main sentence.

My daughter’s teacher figured out hers in just one second! She wants to stump her teacher, though. Here are the ones she wrote in class:

Supporting Detail Sentences

I used to have a white cat.

I once had a box turtle.

I’ve had many birds.

Main Idea Sentence

I’ve had many pets in my life.

We are sitting here wracking our brains trying to think of one that will stump her, but, it is hard! I did come up with one way to stump her that did not impress Sam. If you were to express an opinion in the main idea, and the supporting sentences only contained the facts! I think it’s brilliant! I’m not sure, though, if that means they really are supporting sentences! This is what I came up with:

Supporting Detail Sentences

My mom has seventeen angel figurines.

My dad has a ton of knives.

My brother has lots of Pokemon cards.

Main Idea Sentence

I really don’t like the stuff my family collects.

Wait a minute! Stop the presses! She just threw a whole new monkey wrench into this darn thing! You actually show the person all four sentences! That’s crazy! I thought you just show them your supporting sentences and they have to come up with your main sentence! This is even harder than I thought! And no wonder she didn’t like my idea!

Ok, now I’m really scratching my head! You guys gotta help us out! Let’s all put our heads together and think! Think! Think! Think!

This is one time I’m not gonna yell at you to Go Read A Book - because, I want you thinking!!

Anyone? Anyone?