Oddballs
Published on 25. August 2015
132 pages
978-1-5040-1910-1 (ISBN)
Description
The Sleators are not your average family...
When author William "Billy" Sleator was growing up, life was a never-ending adventure. The best presents his parents ever gave him and his sister, Vicky, were 2 younger brothers, Danny and Tycho. The 4 siblings delighted in playing pranks on one another and on their unsuspecting friends and neighbors. The children's mother and father also liked to joke around. Their mom, who was a pediatrician, came up with a witty name for the kids' drama club: the Parkview Traumatic Club. Their dad, who was a physiologist, would sometimes blindfold Billy, along with his sister and brothers, and take them for a ride-dropping them off in an unfamiliar place and telling them to find their way back with only a single dime to make a phone call.
Whether he's regaling us with tall tales about hypnotism and séances, riffing on his family's deepest secrets, or waxing philosophical about being liked for who you are and not who you hang out with, Sleator offers an illuminating window into his unique and offbeat family, in which life was lived to the fullest.
When author William "Billy" Sleator was growing up, life was a never-ending adventure. The best presents his parents ever gave him and his sister, Vicky, were 2 younger brothers, Danny and Tycho. The 4 siblings delighted in playing pranks on one another and on their unsuspecting friends and neighbors. The children's mother and father also liked to joke around. Their mom, who was a pediatrician, came up with a witty name for the kids' drama club: the Parkview Traumatic Club. Their dad, who was a physiologist, would sometimes blindfold Billy, along with his sister and brothers, and take them for a ride-dropping them off in an unfamiliar place and telling them to find their way back with only a single dime to make a phone call.
Whether he's regaling us with tall tales about hypnotism and séances, riffing on his family's deepest secrets, or waxing philosophical about being liked for who you are and not who you hang out with, Sleator offers an illuminating window into his unique and offbeat family, in which life was lived to the fullest.
More details
Person
William Sleator (1945-2011) was an American science fiction author best known for his young adult novels. Raised outside of St. Louis, Missouri, Sleator was the eldest of four children. After graduating from Harvard University with a degree in English, he moved to England for a short time, where he played music for ballet classes and developed the ideas for
Blackbriar, his first novel. For many years, he was the rehearsal pianist for the Boston Ballet.
Sleator is the author of over thirty books, including The Angry Moon, which was awarded the Caldecott Medal and nominated for the National Book Award, as well as the quasi-autobiographical science fiction thrillers: The Night the Heads Came, Others See Us, and Oddballs. In his later years, he split his time between Boston and rural Thailand.
Sleator is the author of over thirty books, including The Angry Moon, which was awarded the Caldecott Medal and nominated for the National Book Award, as well as the quasi-autobiographical science fiction thrillers: The Night the Heads Came, Others See Us, and Oddballs. In his later years, he split his time between Boston and rural Thailand.
Content
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Games
- Frank's Mother
- The Freedom Fighters of Parkview
- The Hypnotist
- The Séance
- The Pitiful Encounter
- Leah's Stories
- Pituh-plays
- Dad's Cool
- Oddballs
- About the Author
- Copyright Page
