Oddballs

by William Sleator

The author of such reliably offbeat sf thrillers as Strange Attractors (1990) radically changes pace for ten hilarious, semi- autobiographical stories. With affection and a splendid sense of comic timing, Sleator drags forth incidents from his family closet's darkest recesses--the time young Tycho was hypnotized and then made to drink from the toilet; an indignant skit that laid bare the failings of certain parents, to their vast amusement; rough-and-tumble car games; and deliciously horrifying pranks played on unsuspecting passersby. Vivid characterizations (sister Vicky ``had always enjoyed making dolls fight with each other; when the dolls wore out, she ripped off their arms and legs. Now she is a nurse'') always balance foibles with saving graces; embarrassment is eased by laughter, while painful circumstances always come right in the end. Sleator shows how, in a loosely run household presided over by indulgent working parents, he and his three siblings developed confident, independent spirits. Though he admits to making up a few things, his dedication is telling – ``To my family: Please forgive me!'' – Kirkus Reviews

 

 

 

Genres: Young Adult, Humor, Fiction, Childrens, Short Stories, Young Readers, Juvenile

144 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

William Warner Sleator III was born in Havre de Grace, Maryland on February 13, 1945, and moved to St. Louis, MO when he was three. He graduated from University City High School in 1963, from Harvard in 1967 with BAs in music and English.

For more than thirty years, William Sleator thrilled readers with his inventive books. His House of Stairs was named one of the best novels of the twentieth century by the Young Adult Library Services Association.

William Sleator died in early August 2011 at his home in Thailand.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

EDIT so alfonso doesn't start crying.

this book is like running with scissors for the teen set, but with less statutory rape and depression. it is a series of autobiographical essays devoted to "look how unconventional my upbringing was!!! look at how creative my sister and i were when we were on long car rides and wrapped ourselves in brown blankets and pretended we were poo and had conversations that we expected poo would have if it could talk!!! look at how our mother's casual housekeeping and hands-off parenting freaked out other mothers, and note her snappy retorts to the offended individuals!! how cool must life have been for us, you see???"

this book treads the line between funny and irritating. there is an inescapable smugness to it, but some of the stories are quite good. let me try to explain what this book makes me feel inside.

let's say there are two people. person A is blathering on about how he has four cars. he thinks this makes him really cool, and he is telling person B because he wants person B to be totally jealous of his four cars. however, unbeknownst to person A, person B actually owns six cars. but he has never mentioned them to person A because it is just a fact of life to which he has become accustomed and maybe he is a little shamed by his own excess or he just doesn't think it is interesting to talk about or any of person A's business. so but person B is listening to all this and feels like maybe he should speak up about it and clarify what is happening here because he is feeling increasingly embarrassed by the situation and person A's totally misplaced value system because if it ever comes up in future conversations it is going to be very embarrassing to them both when person A learns that person B just sat there the whole time without saying anything...

and that awkwardness is the way i feel as a reader. not because i had a particularly wacky childhood, because i didn't. but because listening to someone boast about how craaaaazy they are makes me feel just glazed and dead inside. no one wants to hear about skits you put on for family friends when you were eleven. trust me.**

and i did like a lot of this book, and i liked running with scissors to a certain extent too, but the whole idea of glamorizing parents who will drive their kids somewhere unfamiliar, give them a dime, and tell them to find their way home or call for help if they can't do it; it seems unhealthy. it was a different time, sure, but it just seems careless. and there was too much weird family togetherness in the skit-performing and weird overly-involved in some things and totally laissez-faire in others that struck me as this horrifying bipolar formative experience, like being raised by some methed-out version of the von trapps.

and there is an edge of cruelty or masochism in some of these stories. for example - staging fake fights on public transportation where one girl would be ostracized and openly mocked by the other girls at full volume for the benefit of the other passengers, to gauge their reactions. as someone who has to deal with public transportation every day, this irritates me beyond belief. but i fucking hate spectacle, that's just me. and breaking into some poor compulsive liar's fantasy-world and taking it over and turning her only friends against her, even if they were only polite to her out of basic human civility. there is just something terrible about these people. who does this?? and does it with such wild gleeful abandon and then brags about it in adulthood?? "yeah, we totally ruined the only place she had where she felt like she belonged. but it's okay because she was always lying about shit." etc etc

what a tool.

at the end, sleator is there to remind the reader that he is, first and foremost, a writer of fiction and that he may have exercised the writer's prerogative to embellish a little in order to make the stories "pop" a little more, or to give them a more satisfying resolution.

oh, if only james frey had employed this tactic, he could have avoided being scolded by oprah in front of everyone.

**EDIT - i realize i did a poor job of explaining here. let me clarify. i do not mind tales from people's childhood, as will soon become apparent. what i do mind are people's tales of "how cool they were when they were little which made them so cool in adulthood" but only when the things they think are cool are things i feel sorry/embarrassed for them for having done. like the kids who in jr high could quote every monty python sketch ever, and they were so cool in their little circle, but then they grow up and then you think "how sad" because that is like their life's achievement and they have practically written a glory days type of song about it. me and sleator's "cool factors" do not line up. pretending to have a baby swaddled in a blanket and then hurling it at the ground so it splatters everywhere and it takes people a little while to realize it was actually a watermelon - i don't find that funny. it is basically littering.i find performance art to be intrusive and the practitioners of it are rarely clever, so it just becomes an inconvenience.and, yes, they were kids when they were doing this so that should mitigate it a little, but the fact is, he grew up and still thinks it is cool. i did plenty of annoying things as a teen, but i will not talk about them, much less publish them, because i have grown up enough to know that it was actually not cool. and maybe you think it is cool, and that's fine. i just don't. it makes my skin crawl a little. i don't think i have explained myself any better here, but it's all i have today.

come to my blog!

[Buddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, I grew up with the Sleator family and his brothers Danny and Tycho were among my best friends. The book rang very true for me. I loved spending time with them because they were so unconventional, with a basement full of Van de Graff generators, magnets, and all" kinds of cool stuff. I found out about this book because my nephew was reading it and started laughing about a character named Tycho Barney George Clement Newby Sleator. My brother said, "No way!" and took a look at the book and called me about it. Anyway, I enjoyed reading it and I think young teens would like it.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a delightful, easy-to-read memoir by this fantastic author! I really enjoyed reading about his childhood escapades!

[Bogi Takács]

Not planning on reviewing this here because I read it for a research project, so it'll come up there, but I was surprised to find out Sleator was Jewish! So I wanted to mention that.
____
Source of the book: Bought with my own money

[Paula · Rating 1 out of 5]

I once toyed with the idea of writing about my somewhat unconventional family. This book has cured me of that. Actions and scenes that one person can think demonstrate a charming unconventionality, another may just find appalling. I was interested in reading this book because Sleator not only grew up as part of an unconventional family, but he did it in St. Louis, the city that my parents were from, and where I still have lots of family. Eccentric characters, the beautiful city of St. Louis, what's not to like? Well, the stuff that Sleator and and his sister, Vicky, thought was so unbelievably funny is "Borat" humor. The kind where you basically put other people on the spot, and then laugh at them when they try to be helpful or compassionate. Sleator and his sister apparently thought it was the epitome of funny to call strangers up on the phone and pretend to be children abandoned at the bus station, and would fall down laughing when the unsuspecting stranger dropped the phone so that they could hurry to the bus station to come to their aid. Now, I do understand why a 12-year-old might find that humorous, because 12-year-olds are generally clueless. But why would you write about it as an adult as if it were the funniest, most charming thing? Well, to be fair, he probably didn't think it was charming, but it did prove how "oddball" and "unconventional" he and his sister were. But it was really just mean, the way young kids and teenagers can be mean. Anyway, I didn't really find any of his antics funny. Maybe when I was 12 I might have found it funny. Maybe. I'd like to think that even then I would have detected the meanness of the humor, even if I was laughing at it.
I've never read any of Sleator's fiction, and now, I doubt if I ever will.

[Riley Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazingly charming short book, Oddballs made me only wish my childhood was more entertaining, and made me want to call my siblings to catch up. Following the Sleator family in the 50s/60s, this story tells readers that sometimes, it's better to be outside of the cultural norm. Billy (William) Sleator retells his childhood antics, performances, practical jokes, and plays through a series of vignettes in this book. Hilariously devious, these four children get into things that my parents would have killed me for, while theirs simply laugh along. This book does an excellent job of reminding us to stop and remember the importance of family and having fun. I rarely read books twice, but this one will definitely be picked up again.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Autobiographical stories of the author's childhood. Titles are: Games; Frank's Mother; The Freedom Fighter's of Parkview; The Hypnotist; The Seance; The Pitiful Encounter; Leah's Story; Pituh-plays; Dad's Cool; Oddballs. The stories demonstrate how the schools "oddballs" can still have friends and fun even though they're not in the in crowd. And all of these so called oddballs are doing very well today - the ultimate revenge.

Fantastic! A perfect book for those students who are bright and talented but don't seem to fit in with the crowd. This book shows them that it's perfectly fine not to be popular and, in fact in some ways, it's better.

[maysri??? · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its a great autobiography even if he did exaggerate some things.

[Cassandra Wright]

Oddballs by William Sleator literally had me laughing out loud at frequent intervals throughout its entirety. It was a short work and a quick read, so when I brought it to work for my moments of down time between table needs, I did not plan to give my covert activities away by belting out my mirth in my cubby-hole 10 feet from the elderly couple I waited on; yet that is just what happened! Luckily for me, they had a sense of humor!

This short work is written from the perspective of an adolescent boy and it details the bazaar experiences which he and his siblings created and encountered growing up in a VERY not-traditionalist home. Their parents believed in freedom, the house was chaotic, and the children were constantly exposed to ideas and situations which required them to embrace their independence and their creativity. I couldn't put the work down!

Anyway, this book employed a different set of techniques for story-telling which really worked for me.is not a typical novel which progresses through a typical plot-line. The book is a collage of snap-shots encapsulated in each chapter, detailing events and experiences in the author’s life. Such a technique is an interesting approach to story-telling and gives the reader an impression of the characters involved and their life-style through these several glimpses into key moments. The goal is not to detail events which led to a conclusion in a chronological order; but to portray a journey with value in and of itself, without the necessity of a conventional build up, climax, and falling action before the resolution. On a side note, the unconventionality here also reflects the theme of the book in general. Granted, the final chapter does give details regarding the way that the main characters turned out, but this is not the focus of the work. This would be an interesting technique to explore in a middle-grades classroom by allowing the students to experiment with the creation of similar snap-shot like descriptions in order to expand their writing abilities.

Another distinctive element to Sleator’s style is the tone of the work and the way in which he establishes it. The tale is told about an adolescent boy’s experiences, and the terms and phrases used reflect this fact. One example is in the child-like correlations used in descriptions. On page 117, for example, when describing the cicadas, Tycho says, “That noise makes the sun go down”. This is a typically childish impression which confuses correlation with cause-and-effect. It helps establish a childish tone within the text, and again, leaves room for text-to-world considerations of where such confusions might be found in the world today (branching off into politics, perhaps).
Another descriptive example on the same page is found in the protagonist’s reminiscence of the camp-out scene, where he says, “Mom heated up canned baked beans, which always tasted delicious in the open air”. The taste and the setting are not truly related, but the manner of combining them leads to a fuller impression of the experience which the author is communicating, without departing from the childish tone he has established. This would be a good time to introduce an exercise revolving around establishing a tone in a piece of writing and maintaining it throughout.

Another interesting aspect of Sleator’s style, is the way he juxtaposes experiences and reactions. In chapter 9, entitled “Dad’s Cool”, the protagonist tells how his father used to lock them up in a freezing laboratory full of gruesome organs for indefinite periods of time. The reaction he records, however, is interestingly twisted. He says, “We never knew how long he’d leave us locked up in there, shivering happily”(114). This positive reaction to a seemingly uncomfortable (at face value) situation fits the theme of the story, with its emphasis on thinking outside of the box. Another thread that runs throughout the story is the idea that independence (which was a necessary element of many similar recorded experiences in the book) breeds courage. These children were given a lot of freedom, and they used it to explore and learn. This would be yet another topic which could lead into text-to-world discussions of interest to a middle-school classroom, regarding questions of where the appropriate limitations to freedom lies based on both age and human rights.

Finally, Sleator makes his writing real for readers by claiming, in the last chapter, that he only lied about one thing, and telling what it was. I got chills of excitement when I read that! "so it IS possible?!" I thought. This statement makes the piece more relatable to young readers and adult aged big-kids like myself. It gives the author credibility and makes the creative contents of the book more accessible. It allows the children reading this book to see that the creative and entertaining tales it portrays are not the sort of experiences which can only be enjoyed within the pages of a book, but really happened, and could be the sort of things they reminisce about if they have to courage to think outside of the box and refuse to conform.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Sleator, acclaimed writer of middle grade fiction, brings his childhood to life in a series of humorous anecdotes about the memorable events he and his family lived through while he was growing up in the late 1950s through the heart of the 1960s. We learn about his unconventional parents - Mom, a pediatrician and Dad, a physiology professor - along with his sister and two brothers. From pretending to be BMs by wrapping up in brown blankets to his sister at 5 years old announcing to their dad's boss and his wife that the pile of sand in the backyard was "a shit pit" because all of the cats and dogs in the neighborhood that used it. Describing he and his sister as the first hippies at their high school, their behavior was purposely shocking. Popping ABC (Already Been Chewed) gum from under school drinking fountains into their mouths, chewing happily, they made sure the "pituh" or pitifully popular kids, observed them and were properly disgusted. Sleator attributes the fact that, as adults, he and his siblings never base their behavior on what other people think of them to these uncommon early years. Overall, a truly enjoyable account of a unique family.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

'The best presents our parents ever gave to my sister, Vicky, and me were our little brothers.'

How can you not like a book that begins that way? This autobiography was a departure from William Sleator's usual children's science fiction novels; it's about his unconventional upbringing and is almost a love letter to his sister and brothers. I loved Sleator's books when I was a kid, so having heard that he died (nine years ago - news sometimes doesn't reach me very quickly) I thought I would re-read this one. It's just as charming as I remember. Sleator talks about putting baby Danny on top of the stack of suitcases in the car to make him laugh (at least until Danny fell off every time the car hit a bump), his youngest brother not having a name until he was two because his parents didn't get around to choosing one, teaching their little brothers all the curse words they knew, and their dad dropping Billy and his sister off in some unknown part of their city (they were both under 10) and telling them to find their way home (with a single dime with which to call home if they got truly lost).

It's not a long read but I thought it was quite fun.

[Amy Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Free through Amazon prime. I got into it thinking it was memoir, but it is semi-autobiographical fiction. Amusing celebration of non-conformity.

[Aarav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. It is hilarious, heartfelt and stays with you.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eek. I mean, they turned out ok, pretty great, actually. But I just cannot imagine raising kids in that manner. It's a lot for a parent to think about. I have no idea what kids might think.

[Jazmine Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a piece of home to me. Growing up with four brothers, I could easily place myself in the shoes of all of the characters. I think I was more of the Vicky of the family. Being the only girl, it was inevitable that I be the bossy one, but I could also see myself as Tycho. Even though I'm not the youngest of the four, I sometimes felt left out because I am a girl. Most of the time I felt like William because I was (and still am) the most mature of the bunch, but than I found myself acting like Danny whenever I bullied one of my brothers (only for a good purpose). I can definitely place one of my siblings in the shoes of one of the characters as well. As you can see this book is very easy to connect with.

This book also teaches you the great value of accepting yourself no matter how quirky you are. That in it off itself is one of the main reasons why I feel this book will be great for middle school aged students. As we all know middle school is one of the hardest things to get through because we are all too busy trying to fit in. This little family of oddballs didn't see it that way. They made it their "thing". The only problem that arises is that maybe the student reading the book doesn't have any siblings backing them up in their time of need. All we can do is hope that the student has friends who they can talk to and connect with. If that still isn't the case, then as a future teacher, I will make sure that I will be someone that the student can look up to.

We all know that growing up is hard to do. Sleator's book is a good break from the everyday cyborg activity of introducing a book to the students that they must read for academic purposes and then ask standard questions. This book deals with real life and "in the now" topics. That again, is the major reason why I will be introducing this book to my future lucky students!

[Pritchie Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oddballs is the story of author William Sleator’s childhood. While he has said that he may have exaggerated some aspects found in the novel he assures that all of the stories are from his own childhood experiences. The novel follows a young boy and his siblings growing up under the care of hands off parents and their unconventional upbringing.

I chose this novel out of a group that all centered around the theme of difference for a class on teaching literature to middle grade students. I really connected with the novel at once because I saw a lot of similarities between my childhood and the one portrayed in the novel. I really would recommend teaching Oddballs in a middle grades classroom especially for discussing differences. I think this book is so powerful in the genre of differences because unlike many other novels taught for this genre it doesn't focus on race. Do not get me wrong I do believe that novels involving race should be taught because racial tension is still very present in our society. I just think there is something really positive about teaching the idea of differences through the personalities of the characters and their unique experiences rather than the color of their skin. In my experience middle grades students will generally accept a peer if they are a different race or gender than them as long as they are not different personality wise. I think this book could be a very positive tool to help students embrace their individuality.

I found this book to be entertaining and really rather funny. I believe this is a novel students will enjoy reading. I highly recommend it for either the classroom or just for yourself.

[Ciera Mansker]

Oddballs was a charming story about, well, a family of oddballs. While it lacked in having a heart-gripping story line that would change the reader’s outlook on life, it did leave the reader satisfied after the walk down memory lane. I especially like the part where Sleator admits his stray from the truth about a specific story he told. I think that would be something worth brining up in my language arts classroom for my students; a fictional story can be, and often is, sprang from the roots of truth. The Sleator family is definitely what I would describe as unique and interesting. The only thing that I would question about this book in my classroom would be relevancy to the students. Unfortunately, children more often than not are playing video games instead of creating games with their imagination to play with each other. Women now play a larger role in society and are accepted as such, and I also doubt that parents would be willingly get their child lost and have them find their way home. Because times are different, society is different, and pop culture has changed, I don’t think that students that I will have will take as much from this book as maybe the first time it was read. However, I do think this is a good read and something I would encourage on a student who may feel a little different but needs an upbeat book. Many books I have read about being different in young adult literature are melodramatic and almost encouraging of the aloneness feeling. At least with this text it covers the issue of being different, but not letting that effect or change who you are emotionally.

[Katey Gingles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oddballs is a comical tale of literary fiction. The book takes us back to the days of the author, William Sleator, and his childhood. Coming from an unconvential background where both parents were hard workers, and seemed to have no real worries when it came to their children or what others thought of them. Sleator tells us of this childhood and the adventures, activities, and mischief that they would get into while his parents were away at work. It shows us that even with family we can be as different as night and day, especially when you have no real rules or consequences of actions.

It is a great book when it comes to differences because everyone is different from the other in most aspects, even for kids. Yet, I have no real idea of how to teach it in the classroom, though the easiest way is to use the ‘oppression’ wheel to map out the differences between all the characters. However, I would modify it to make it more interesting and may be easier on the students themselves. I would keep Gender and Ability, but take out the other four inserting perhaps Age as an example.

I feel as though I would have to have a dictionary on each desk as there are words in there that may be out of reach for some students, and instead of telling them automatically what it means I would have them look the word up to create a better understanding, and so that they would be able to remember the meaning of it better. Oddballs is definitely an interesting read to have on a classroom shelf even if I am not sure whether or not I would actually teach it.

[Annastasshia Ames · Rating 3 out of 5]

Told in a episodic kind of way, the book and its chapters follow the life of William Sleator and his siblings, the youngest yet to be named. Sleator's family is immediately recognized as a dysfunctional one. The fact that his parents dropped him and his siblings off in the middle of no where is incriminating proof of this. It will succeed in making you smile. Sleator and his older sister vicky get into quite the mischief with there prank calls and "Pituh-Plays". Maybe its is because of my age but I place myself in the recipient or onlookers shoes instead of the children's. They more often left me with a sense of awkward unease then hilarity. The stories also brought me to pity leah, her loner situation and her tall tales though Sleator fails to recognize it as such and labels them lies. When one if her tale prove true she still manages to be pushed out of something of her making.

I believe that no matter who picks this book up they will always be able to strike some resonance between Sleator's re-telling of his childhood and theirs, as they contemplate their own family and devious deeds.This book would make a fabulous character study in addition to an author study through the text since it is his childhood that he is depicting. That being said I do not think I would want to teach it in class. I would definitely have it available on my book shelf for the right kid. It will be an quick entertaining book for middle grade students to read.

[Courtney Ballantine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oddballs is a poignant, laugh-out-loud funny, and at times cringe-worthy collection of stories from the author’s childhood. According to Sleator, all but one story happened as he remembered with only minor exaggeration as is expected when recalling events that happened in your past; everyone’s perspective is different. The stories primarily follow the Sleator siblings: Billy, Vicky, Danny, and Tycho as they experience childhood and adolescence and what happens to them in adulthood. The stories do not skimp on entertainment. Oddballs is a truly engaging and quick read that will leave even the most uninterested readers smiling.

I think that this book could be used at an early secondary level and possibly for advanced upper middle school readers. As an adult reader, I noticed some challenging vocabulary and word phrasing that I feel could be too challenging for younger adolescents. However, having said that, I believe that with support, this could be an excellent book to take excerpts from or derive creative writing lessons for that could work even in early middle school classrooms.

[Talor Oden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I typically can read a story in a strictly platonic fashion without allowing my emotions to emerge, but I have found myself growing attached to the characters involved in this book. Sleator uses vivid characterizations for describing the people in his story, and he uses a playful balance of laughter for embarrassment and shortcomings for saving graces that all eventually end up in a painful circumstance. I enjoy this book in particular because I can relate to it, as I am sure many other also identify for similar reasons. Sometimes, I find myself belly-laughing at these stories, wondering if they really might be true or not. I like that Sleator illustrates his family members in a light that, although can be negative at times, ultimately displays their mutual love and affection for each other, and I think this aspect is what really gives this story depth. I think this book would be a great fundamental teaching tool for middle grade students when talking about individuality and the importance of staying true to yourself and where you came from.

[Leigh Spooner · Rating 3 out of 5]

William Sleator provides a rich, entertaining account of his unique childhood. Overall, I enjoyed this book. I think the characters kept me on my toes, and the things they did had me laughing. I learned to expect the unexpected with this book. I think that young adult readers may be able to identify with a good bit of the content in this book: feeling like an outcast, conformity, being compared to other children, and frustrating parents. Though the parents were far from perfect and truly annoyed me at some points during the book, I enjoyed their hands-off method of parenting, and I think they helped raise some successful children. I give this book 3 stars because though the material was entertaining, I sometimes got lost in all the details and felt that I was missing out on some important concept somewhere. As a future educator, I would definitely consider keeping this book in my classroom, pointing students to it if they ever struggled with odd families or being different. I definitely liked how this book celebrated "oddballs."

[Julie Decker · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a romp through William Sleator's slightly exaggerated stories of childhood, this interconnected series of tales takes us through the lives of four siblings, detailing their pranks, their interactions with adults, their creative scenarios, and their pretend games. William, as the eldest boy, played the "older sibling" bully fairly often--finding his younger siblings' discomfort amusing--but he becomes the victim on occasion too. What I liked most about the book was the way it captured the things kids do for the hell of it when they lack filters and knowledge, and how incredibly random some of their games were.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oddballs by William Sleator was such a cute book filled with lots of fun stories of a very tight nit an inspirational family. I think this is a great book for children to read as they can relate a lot of it to their own lives. I grew up an only child, so reading this book was an eye opener on what children with siblings life is like! The whole family is very close and that is something that all families should aspire to be like. Teaching this book could be really fun, and it would introduce students to narrative writing.
Overall, this book was cute and fun, and most likely geared to late elementary aged children, and I think they would love it.

[Swankivy · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Sleator is one of my favorite science fiction kids' authors, so it was a treat to get to read a basically autobiographical book about his growing-up years. He tells us most of the stories within are true (though some are exaggerated in the telling). I loved the bit about him and his sister covering themselves with brown blankets and pretending that they were pieces of poop, and later tales of what they did to their poor brother Tycho and the crazy shenanigans they pulled in public. You really get a sense of how William became such a creative adult. ;)

[James Poz · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was interesting to read about Williams childhood been it was a bit exaggerated at times. It put In many different stories from his childhood. At times it would be funny but also at times very timid. It appealed for me to read this book because the way his parents raised him and his siblings. Also how he interacted with siblings were comical. Learning about how he was raised shows the difference of how I was raised. I enjoyed how he wrote from his personal experiences. Some things I would've taken out but overall a very good read.

[Kenneth Ware · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually found this book entertaining. Sleater did a good job telling little stories into one big story. I think this would be interesting to teenagers too because its about his childhood but he doesn't use real names which makes it funny. He even admits at the end that he exaggerated a little bit so he tells his family not to be mad. What makes it interesting is you don't know what true and what was a joke for entertainment. All you can do is guess like me which I'm hoping that the story about the boy being hypnotized to drink toilet water was false but funny!!!

[Anriyeta Vlayeva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oddballs

William Sleator has written the childhood that every reader will envy. The hysterical laughter and heart-warming good feelings his story encourages is so brilliant. So many ridiculous moments are held in this gem of a book. And you know what makes it better? It's all a true story. Sleator actually got to live it all. He has successfully created a album of his childhood; not told through photographs, but through his stories. Genius.

[Diana Welsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute and funny tale of William Sleator's childhood, and the pranks that he used to play with his brothers and sisters. Their parents basically allowed them to run wild but the siblings all turned out to be very successful. It explains a lot about Sleator's books and why they're so good.

Edit: I just saw another reviewer describe Sleator's family as a "methed-out version of the von Trapps." That about sums it up.