Leon and the Spitting Image
Leon Zeisel is in big trouble. He is perpetually exhausted due to an  overactive icemaker in the hotel where he lives, he discovers in his  mother's desk a confidential envelope from his school announcing that he  displays "a troubling lack of fine motor skills," and worst of all, he  begins fourth grade under the tyrannical tutelage of Miss Hagmeyer, a  black-cloaked, black-wigged, mushroom-eared woman who is obsessed with  sewing, a fine motor skill if there ever was one. Insisting that all  instruction should stem from the Middle Ages and "The Heavenly Stitches  of Virtue," the Hag forces her students to sew an "animile" per month,  a stuffed animal of sorts that is not to exceed four s.p.i. (stitches  per inch) in the inseam. What happens when Leon decides to sew his  end-of-year "Master Piece," the "spitting image" of Miss Hagmeyer, an  exact miniature replica down to her liver-colored panty hose? Allen  Kurzweil creates a magical, eccentric world where, as in many of the  most satisfying children's books, adults are benevolent but flawed--and  kids are in delicious control of them. Fans of Daniel Pinkwater's novels  will feel right at home with this clever and suspenseful  underdog-turns-champion story with a dribble of magic. (Ages 8 and  older)--Karin Snelson--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.