For author Louis Sachar, writing Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom was cathartic. For one, he hadn't revisited the Wayside School series for twenty five years. His last book, Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, was published in 1995 and received solid, but unremarkable reviews.
Secondly, Sachar wrote the book as a way to deal with, according to the Washington Post, things that were causing him and other people in the world stress. This included things like the 2016 election of Donald Trump, the impact of global warming on the world, and his mother's battle with Alzheimer's disease. But, according to Louis Sachar, the book isn't political and isn't meant to be depressing, despite the negativity surrounding the aforementioned subjects. Instead, he said, the book is hopeful and funny and zany.
Sachar also wrote the book as a way to reconnect with kids, because he was growing older and his daughter had become a woman. “But I felt like I could still return to those memories and those kids," Sachar said, "even though in real life, they might be in their 50s now. I still had a vision of them, and it was a lot clearer than trying to write about kids growing up today.”
