Leon and the Spitting Image

Leon and the Spitting Image is about a hotel full of animals. It's about an evil ice maker. It's about glass eyeballs and human catapults. It's about really old panty hose and Possibly Fake Hair. But mostly it's about Leon Zeisel and his epic quest to survive the fourth grade. What's stopping him? Two things. First, there's Miss Hagmeyer. She's a supernaturally strict teacher with ears that resemble giant rotting mushrooms. And then there is Leon's archenemy, Lumpkin the Pumpkin, a human tank with a deadly dodgeball throw known to all as the sidewinder. Luckily, Leon has two friends, Lily-Matisse and P.W., who will stand by him no matter what -- even if his magical, mysterious plans for rescue and revenge involve...SPIT! Allen Kurzweil is the author of two critically acclaimed adult novels: A Case of Curiosities and The Grade Complication. Recently a fellow at the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization at Brown University, he lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with his wife and son. Leon and the Spitting Image is his first children's book and his second is Leon and the Champion Chip. Mark Linn-Baker was most recently seen as "Toad" in the Broadway musical A Year with Frog and Toad. He is a producing director of the New York Stage and Film, and his Broadway credits include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Neil Simon's Laughter on the 23rd Floor, Face Value, and Doonesbury. For many, he is best known as Larry Appleton of television's Perfect Strangers.