There are four significant settings in Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars, each with its own role to play in the development of Leonard and Alan.

The first location is their junior high school; a typically dreadful Pinkwater school that is very regimented with doltish administrators and hostile teachers who think that Leonard is stupid. Leonard, who admits that he looks like a penguin, is an outcast who does not fit in with the well-dressed, handsome boys and girls who dominate the school's social life. Even the other outsiders, weird kids of various types, look down on Leonard, who wonders who would be the lowest person in school if he dropped dead.

Leonard's response to the misery of his school is to withdraw into himself, to play the part of the stupid kid so that people will leave him alone.

The arrival of Alan at the school is...