By Louis Sachar
A school that was accidentally built thirty stories tall instead of one, with thirty short, absurd chapters about the very strange children in the top classroom.
Wayside School was supposed to be one story with thirty classrooms; the builder made a mistake and built it thirty stories high with one classroom on each. That mix-up sets the tone for everything: thirty short chapters, one for each child in Mrs. Jewls's class at the very top, and every one of them tilts logic just far enough sideways to be hilarious. A boy who's actually a dead rat in a raincoat. A teacher so mean she turns children into apples. Counting that goes wrong in ways that somehow make sense. There's no big plot to hold, just chapter after chapter of deadpan nonsense, which is exactly why it works for a certain kind of funny child.
The episodic build is the gift here. Each chapter is a tiny complete story, three or four pages, so a child can read one and stop, or read one and instantly want the next, and either way they never face a wall of plot to remember. That makes it a low-commitment summer read that's easy to pick up after a day at the pool. The humor is dry and a little surreal rather than potty-joke loud, so it rewards a slightly older, cleverer funny child, the one who likes their comedy weird. And Louis Sachar (who went on to write Holes) is teaching them that a book can be playful and smart at once.