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 ...

Leo and Tim are abducted by aliens—and find themselves in the middle of an intergalactic feudLeo 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 s...

After Jared accidentally plunges into a polluted swamp, he gains the ability to read minds . . . and discovers dangerous secrets about his familyThe 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 oozi...

A foreign exchange student comes to live with Julie's family for a year—setting off a frightening chain of eventsJulie isn't thrilled about her parents' decision to sponsor a foreign exchange student from Thailand. Not only is the stranger going to live with them for a year, but Julie is convinced he'll be a nerd and will embarrass her at school. But when a tall, handsome, super-cool guy named Bia arrives, Julie is suddenly the envy of all her girlfriends.Do...

Eighteen-year-old Sam has always been jealous of his younger brother, Humphrey, the famous "wonder child" pianist. But now that Humphrey is fifteen, the one-time child prodigy isn't able to get any more bookings. Sam's mother refuses to accept that Humphrey's career is over and devises a scheme to recapture his fame: Sam will compose "new works" by a long dead gypsy composer, and they will tell the world that the composer is dictating the music to Humphrey from the grave. The scheme is a w...

A boy unearths a pocket-sized time travel device that could change his life . . . or end it . . . in this classic science fiction adventure."Sleator's expert blend of future and horror fiction is unusually stark, dark, and intriguing. And the breakneck pace never falters." — School Library JournalWhen eleven-year-old Tycho discovers that the mysterious egg-shaped object he dug up in his garden is a time travel devi...

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 p...

Bestselling author Lauren Tarshis tackles the Children's Blizzard of 1888 in this latest installment of the groundbreaking, New York Times bestselling I Survived series.Eleven-year-old John Hale has already survived one brutal Dakota winter, and now he's about to experience one of the deadliest blizzards in American history. The storm of 1888 was a monster, a frozen hurricane that slammed into America's midwest without warning. Within hours, America's prairie would be buri...

It happened on March 29, 1848. The people of the town of Niagara Falls awoke to a near deafening silence.The silence wasn't complete. They could hear a few birds twittering in the trees overhead. There were a few dogs barking. But otherwise there was silence.This was strange because the people of Niagara Falls lived their entire lives with the roar of the falls. It was the background for everything they did. In fact, for most of them, it was their livelihood.But on thi...

When family reunion day arrives, Jackson, a lonely ten-and-a-half-year-old boy, is loathe to share his room with Great Aunt Harriet. She's a hundred and twelve years old, talks unintelligibly out of her toothless mouth, and has very, very, very big hair. But when he falls into her piles of hair during the night, Jackson encounters a world he'd never dreamed existed. In this magical fantasy complemented by zany illustrations, Jackson meets a host of extraordinary characters and finds that h...

Megan is really excited about moving. She can't wait to take her lively Golden Labrador puppy, Ellie, for walks in the countryside near their new house. But Mum and Dad are worried that Ellie is getting in the way, so Gran offers to have the puppy to stay during the move. Megan and Ellie are best friends and have never been separated before. Megan misses her puppy so much - and Ellie will do anything to get home to her dear friend Megan... From best-selling author Holly Webb comes another ...

How is it possible that the one guy Jenny falls for is totally off limits?March isn't usually Jenny's month. For one thing, it's too dark and gray. For another, her sister, Gail, died two years ago in March after being hit by a drunk driver, a blow her family hasn't yet recovered from. But March is also when she first sees Rob. He's new in school, and although Jenny doesn't know who he is yet, she can't look away when they pass each other in the halls. She knows the...