'Watch closely,' said Mrs Jewls. 'You can learn much faster using a computer instead of paper and pencil.' Then she pushed the computer out of the window.

The children all watched it fall thirty floors. 'See?' said Mrs Jewls. 'That's gravity ...' That's the way things happen at Wayside School.

There are twenty-nine kids in Mrs Jewls' class and this book is about all of them: there is Todd, who is in trouble every day, until he gets a magic dog; Paul, whose life is saved by Leslie's pigtails; Ron, who dares to try the cafeteria's mushroom surprise; and all the others who help turn a day at Wayside School into one madcap adventure after another.