Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
Louis Sachar was a student at U.C. Berkeley when he got a job working at a local elementary school to earn college credits. He says he became known as "Louis the Yard Teacher" there, which should sound very familiar to anyone who's read this book. Sachar cites his time spent as a yard teacher as a "life-changing experience" and it wasn't long after his time at Berkeley that he started writing Sideways Stories from Wayside School. (source)
According to Sachar, there is no Chapter 19 in Sideways Stories because "there's no 19th story" of the building. But he makes up for it in the sequel, Wayside School is Falling Down, where there are not one… not two… but three Chapter 19s. (source)
Until Louis Sachar was in third grade, he lived in New York City, where his dad worked on the 78th floor of the Empire State Building. "Maybe that somehow inspired Wayside School, who knows?" Sachar says. (source)