Customer Reviews

Oddballs

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm constantly at my 11 year son to read and I'm always on the lookout for books that will keep him interested and foster a love of books. Someone suggested that William Sleator would do the trick. He thought the book was hysterical and it made for a great summer read for him. I would suggest it for anyone trying to get a boy to read.

This is William Sleator's account of his wacky childhood with his fascinating family of big fat weirdos.

Sleator makes it clear that he (along with his family) was an ODDBALL--that is, not a misfit, just somebody who was always doing something weird--these stories are guaranteed to amuse you, no matter what your age.

I have read this book many times--and I would've given it 5 stars, but it recently dropped down one spot in my mind. In the last chapter, Sleator tells of one part where he fibbed and stretched the truth a bit--so I had always figured, everything else must be true, if he's willing to say that little part was fictional.

And I hate to steal anybody's enjoyment of how amazingly weird the people depicted in this little book are, but I have to tell the truth: The last time I finished reading this, I looked in the very front of the book, at the page with all the publication info--

My feelings were a bit hurt when I saw in small print a few words that changed the way I felt: 'ALL CHARACTERS AND EVENTS DESCRIBED IN THIS BOOK ARE FICTIONAL.' I really hope that's just an obligatory disclaimer.

Even if you have to suspend your disbelief, believe me, you'll enjoy!

I thought this book was excellent because it was about William Sleator and his family with real funny stories. One of the things that I thinkabout this book was that you don't know if the stories William Sleator is telling are reaaly true until the end of the book.William Sleator shares strange and wacky stories about growing up with his mother,farther,his brothers,Danny and Tycho,and his sister vicky. For example ,William's family never took care of their front yard because they only used their backyard,so they never mowed or planted anything in it. The dad,a physicist,used to blindfold the kids and take them for a ride in the car. He would then drop them off in an unfamiliar area and tell them to find their way home. William's dad would give them one dime to cll home if they could not find their way. This was a weekend game they sometimes played. A positive effect I thought this book might have on its reader is to teach kids that it's ok to not be popular. William Sleator said that people should like you for the way you are, not the way you look or how athletic you are. William and his friends were in an unpopular group because they chose to be happy the way they were. They still had fun. One thing I thought might have a negative effect on readers would have to be stories Sleator tells about him, his sister, Vicky, and their friends doing "pituh-plays". William Sleator says "pituh-plays" are skits "often inspired by real people or situations or by unpopular movies and books". One of the meanest "pituh-plays" they ever played was with Vicki and her friends. They went to a fountain at a park with a watermelon wrapped up like a baby. They pretended to be mad and yelled at the baby (watermelon), held it over the fountain, and then threw it in. The watermelon juice would look like blood at first. Some people watching would call the police. I thought this book was great, but it was a little too short. I would love to hear more funny and exciting things that happened to William Sleator and his family.

this book made me want to do everything the characters did. from wrapping up a watermelon in a baby's blanket and pretending it was a baby then throwing it in a pool to see what everyone's reaction would be; to having my dad drop me off in the middle of town, letting me find my way home; or having a seance in a half-built playhouse in my backyard and recording voices to play from under the table. i even tried dying my hair with kool-aid after i read this book. i would reccomend this book to anyone who has a sick sense of humor. as strange and even disturbing as this family was i wish i was a part of it.

This is a very hilarious book about William Sleator's chilidhood. The book is a lot like a journal of someone's life. It goes through the sad, fortunate and sad things in chilidhood. The author uses dialy scenaries and explains what he and his siblings did about them. It contains simple funny memories that are very hard not to laugh at. I particularly liked how it uses a lot of adjectices in describing the characters. It is amazing how Sleator remembers these chilidhood occurances. If you want comedy read this book! You won't regret it. I

After only one page, I was laughing as loud as I could. Not all of the book is this funny, in fact some of it is downright disturbing, but it is one of the most fun reads I've had. Like all of Sleator's books, it is quick and easy. Just a good experience

"Oddballs" is a very good book to read.Insted of only one booring story with few interesting chapter and the rest is borring. When you read oddballs you can have more variety of story, and every chapter would be as interesting as other. You can hardly put the book down because it's so fun. Sometimes when you were sitting alone you can laugh and smile. I would really recomemd this book to anyone who like humor book.

I was very pleased with this purchase. The book matched the description provided by the seller; the seller shipped it promptly, and the book arrived in great shape. Considering that the book is signed by the author (though obviously addressed to someone other than myself), the price was amazing! I would gladly do business with this seller again!

I am a great fan of Sleator's "House of Stairs," which haunted me from elementary school until I bought and read it as an adult more than three decades later. The novel follows five sixteen-year-olds thrown into a hostile environment to see whether they will betray each other for food. By contrast, "Oddballs" is a series of comic scenes from Sleator's real-life unconventional family. Yet ultimately I found "Oddballs" the bleaker and less satisfying book.

In "House of Stairs," two teens emerged as heroes when they refused to accept the conditions imposed by the pitiless experiment. Revolt was a major motif in "Oddballs" as well, but the force being opposed was conventionality. When the family threw out the bathwater of unthinking conformity, however, sometimes the baby also ended up hitting the ground, quite literally: Sleator and his sister would place their infant brother on a shaky pile of suitcases in a moving car, creating a rocking that delighted him until he ended up crying on the floor - and then put him back on the pile. The Sleator kids and their friends played many such mildly sadistic games on each other, or on unsuspecting strangers. Sometimes I snickered, but I found the aftertaste increasingly bitter. In the same way, the Sleator parents' indifference (for instance, his mother's refusal to investigate one child's persistent projectile vomiting) seemed to be presented for laughs, or shock, that I eventually grew reluctant to provide. The author himself became the victim of a sadistic prank played by a teacher jealous of Sleator, but he seemed blind to the parallel between his treatment by the teacher and the games he and his siblings played.

I'm not sure whether to ascribe my dissatisfaction with "Oddballs" to discomfort with Sleator's worldview (an extreme form of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger") or the way he constructed this autobiography. Perhaps if he had spent more time presenting the smug conformists that he and his sister loved to make uncomfortable, I would have been more sympathetic to the Sleators. (I did get a kick out of the friend's mother who ran away in terror after showing up early to spy on their household.) Perhaps I would have preferred it if Sleator had tempered the judgmentalism and competitiveness (past or present?) in the description of his peers with more of his friend Nicole's humanizing insight. There is depth here if you look for it, but it feels as though it is clouded with unresolved resentment and obsession as to who won the game. I found the book less rewarding than I had hoped, but perhaps I'm the "oddball" here.

I was a little surprised to find this book is an autobiography instead of the science fiction and horror that mr. sleator usually writes. It is a must read for william sleator fans who will come to understand the author's source for such amazing ideas for his books. Be warned these are just stories of his typical (or not so typical) youth, and not a mind bending science fiction read. We learn of his unusual upbringing and his off the wall family as the author was growing up. The horrible and funny things his family do to others and each other make for an amusing read.