Playing with Matches (22 page)

Brian Katcher
wrote
Playing with Matches
on a third-hand laptop while living in Mexico. He is a school librarian and lives in Missouri with his wife, Sandra, and baby daughter, Sophie. This is his first novel.

Published by Delacorte Press an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc. New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2008 by Brian Katcher

Interior illustration © 2008 Cole Gerst/option-G

All rights reserved.

Delacorte Press and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Visit us on the Web!
www.randomhouse.com/teens

Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Katcher, Brian.

Playing with matches / Brian Katcher.

p. cm.

Summary: While trying to find a girl who will date him, Missouri high school junior

Leon Sanders befriends a lonely, disfigured female classmate.

[1. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Beauty, Personal—Fiction. 4. High schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Disfigured persons—Fiction. 7. Missouri—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.K1565P1 2008

[Fic]—dc22

2007027654

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

eISBN: 978-0-375-84882-7

v3.0