House of Stairs [Paperback]

William Sleator (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1975

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Five 16-year-old orphans of widely varying personality characteristics are involuntarily placed in a house of endless stairs as subjects for a psychological experiment on conditioned human response.

--This text refers to the School & Library Binding edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 157 pages
• Publisher: Avon Books (Mm) (October 1975)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380005077
• ISBN-13: 978-0380005079
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,460,877 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Adult Book for Kids, July 13, 2001

By 

David Lublin "dlublin" (Chevy Chase, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: House of Stairs (Paperback)

Easily the finest of Sleator's works, this book is about five 16-year olds who are then subjected to Pavlovian conditioning in order to . . . well I don't want to spoil the book completely. It is set against a background of a futuristic world gone bad though virtually all of the action takes place in the creepy house of stairs with only the five teenagers present. An excellent morality tale that will make people of any age think. I've read it loads of times over the years and still like it. It might not be appropriate for younger kids of high reading ability (or should at least be discussed with them afterward). On the other hand, it is a work to be recommended precisely because it doesn't shy away from tough issues that many adult works grapple with.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remembering this book, years later, September 1, 2006

By 

R. Rousseau "ReenieSR" (DALLAS, TEXAS United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: House of Stairs (Paperback)

I first read this book in junior high. I'm 42 year old now, and the themes of this book stand out, even today. It was one of the few books I read in those days that kept me thinking about it, long after it was completed. I believe that this book was what first led me to study psychology. For young readers, it can be quite disturbing, or quite boring...depending upon how much they "think" about it. If you read this book and want to know more about the psychology behind it, check out the entries in Wikipedia about the Milgram study or the Zimbardo Stanford Prison experiements. Another reviewer mentioned Pavlov conditioning, but I think the studies related to obedience and learned helplessness are equally applicable.

I recommend this book for young people over the age of 10. Another good book for folks who like this book is O.T. Nelson's "The Girl Who Owned a City" (ISBN: 0822596709 ).

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sleator should be required reading for all juveniles, July 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: House of Stairs (Paperback)

Many years ago, when I was a wee lad of ten, I came across this book. At the time it registered as nothing more than a really good book, but later in life, I realized that House of Stairs was the first book that took my pinhole sized window of decent human normalcy and opened the blinds to include all the lovely dark fringes into view.

This book, while being strictly a kid's book and friendly to a wide range of young readers, is one of the most sinister lessons of base human nature around. The "experiment" which makes up the story, is a pretty stark look at what happens to society (or 'cliques,' since we are dealing with kids), when the external influences of the familiar world are stripped away, and all that's left is satiating the animal instict of survival.

Sort of a post-modern Lord of the Flies. Instead of an island, it's a (see title). There is a definate two-pronged lesson to be learned by reading this book. The first is to witness the change in the children as the experiment wears them down into little more than animals performing for sustenance. The second is the realization that the authority behind their situation is the true evil--subjecting the kids to severe psychological torture for no more cause than scientific whimsy.

Teachers, you want your kids to grow up as free, clear thinkers? Stock this and every book Sleator has ever written.