Most Popular Books by William Sleator

When Laura discovers that the unpopular boy living next door to her has the ability to go into the fourth dimension, she makes the dangerous decision to accompany him on his journeys there.

A Caldecott Honor recipient, science fiction author William Sleator presents "a fast-paced, chilling fantasy" ( Booklist) of one girl''s unexpected adventure beyond her imagaination. A dark awakening... When her parents give her a gloomy old dollhouse for her birthday instead of the ten speed bike she''s expecting, Vicky is disappointed. But she soon becomes fascinated by the small shadowy world and its inhabitants. The hours she spends playing with the dolls is a good way to escape from her parents''s arguments. As Vicky''s life becomes more troubled, she starts to take out her frustration on the dolls, making their lives as unhappy as hers. Then one day, Vicky wakes up inside the dollhouse, trapped among the monsters she''s created. Bewildered, Vicky is sure she''s dreaming. Can she find her way out of this nightmare world? At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Three teen-agers, thrown together by chance in an isolated house, become increasingly aware of a threat lurking in the darkness outside.

This chilling, suspenseful indictment of mind control is a classic of science fiction and will haunt readers long after the last page is turned. One by one, five sixteen-year-old orphans are brought to a strange building. It is not a prison, not a hospital; it has no walls, no ceiling, no floor. Nothing but endless flights of stairs leading nowhere--except back to a strange red machine. The five must learn to love the machine and let it rule their lives. But will they let it kill their souls? "An intensely suspenseful page-turner." --School Library Journal "A riveting suspense novel with an anti-behaviorist message that works . . . because it emerges only slowly from the chilling events." --Kirkus Reviews

A teenage boy unravels the sinister mysteries of his new home

Dom, a fourteen-year-old computer enthusiast, travels to Bangkok in order to find a necklace that his sister had lost three years earlier and to lift the curse that has plagued his family since that time.

After Jared accidentally plunges into a polluted swamp, he gains the ability to read minds . . . and discovers dangerous secrets about his family The first thing Jared does every summer when he and his family arrive at their cottage is hop on his bike and cruise along the back roads. Only this year he''s grown too big for the bike. When the brakes suddenly give out at the bottom of the hill where the road makes a sharp turn, Jared plunges into an industrial swamp oozing with toxic waste. After the accident, Jared feels OK—except for a headache. But then he starts hearing strange things: people''s private thoughts, which are the total opposite of what they actually say. Next, Jared''s journal is stolen. Luckily, he can just read the mind of the person who stole it. He can also use his new power to track down the culprit in a recent series of ATM robberies and neighborhood break-ins. But along with solving mysteries, Jared uncovers shocking family secrets, the identity of someone else who has the same paranormal gift as him, and the truth about the girl he loves.

Leo and Tim are abducted by aliens—and find themselves in the middle of an intergalactic feud Leo is driving his best friend, Tim, to the station to catch the midnight train to New York City, where Tim hopes to sell his science fiction drawings to a publisher. But they never get there. While on the road, Leo and Tim see a strange circle of lights in the sky, and before they know it, creepy, tiny-headed creatures are taking samples of the boys'' blood on some sort of spaceship. Suddenly, Leo is back in his car and Tim—along with Leo''s memory—is gone. Worse, when Leo finally starts to remember what happened, no one believes him. Before long, the 2 friends find themselves in the middle of a cosmic contest between warring alien races—and the people of Earth are caught in the crossfire. Time is running out, and it''s up to Leo and Tim to save the planet from catastrophe.

Twin boys discover a playhouse on the property they have inherited that contains a mystery involving monsters from space and a new dimension in time.

Isaac is the new kid in town. His mother, Vera, is in the hospital with a mysterious illness, and the only person left to care for Isaac is his distant grandfather. Friendless and often alone, Isaac loses himself in his collection of optical illusions, including a strange mirror box that he finds in his new house, left behind by the previous tenants. Designed for amputees, it creates the illusion of a second limb. Lonely Isaac wishes someone would reach out to him, and then someone does—a phantom limb within the mirror box! It signs to Isaac about a growing danger: someone who has murdered before and is out to get Vera next. The only way Isaac can solve the mystery and save his mother is with the help of the mirror box. But can he trust the phantom limb?

Not long after learning that he was adopted, eleven-year-old Peter is hit by a car and then given several chances to alter events that could lead to his death.

Barney''s boring seaside vacation suddenly becomes more interesting when the cottage next door is occupied by three exotic neighbors who are addicted to a game they call "Interstellar Pig."

Eighteen-year-old Sam falls in with his mother''s bizarre scheme to revitalize his younger brother''s flagging career as a piano prodigy, and agrees to compose "new works" by a long-dead composer and present them to his brother as the dictations of a ghost.

Annie''s Uncle Marco goes on one of his mysterious trips, leaving her in charge of two sealed boxes on one condition: she must not open either one while he is away. But she is tempted...and soon she has unleashed the unspeakable. The creatures inside the box are crab-like and grotesque. And they possess a power Annie could never have imagined: the power to transmute time."Sleator is the master of the creepy-crawly, and his inventiveness is at full power here." --The Horn Book

Now in paperback! Pass, and have it made. Fail, and suffer the consequences. A master of teen thrillers tests readers’ courage in an edge-of-your-seat novel that echoes the fears of exam-takers everywhere. Ann, a teenage girl living in the security-obsessed, elitist United States of the very near future, is threatened on her way home from school by a mysterious man on a black motorcycle. Soon she and a new friend are caught up in a vast conspiracy of greed involving the mega-wealthy owner of a school testing company. Students who pass his test have it made; those who don’t, disappear . . . or worse. Will Ann be next? For all those who suspect standardized tests are an evil conspiracy, here’s a thriller that really satisfies! Praise for Test “Fast-paced with short chapters that end in cliff-hangers . . . good read for moderately reluctant readers. Teens will be able to draw comparisons to contemporary society’s shift toward standardized testing and ecological concerns, and are sure to appreciate the spoofs on NCLB.†? —School Library Journal “Part mystery, part action thriller, part romance . . . environmental and political overtones . . . fast pace and unique blend of genres holds attraction for younger teen readers.†? —Booklist

When he finds an ancient, egg-shaped object with which he travels back and forth in time, eleven-year-old Tycho grapples with several terrible futures he sees for himself and his family.

Five sixteen-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.