Lizard Music

I don’t know if it was my first favorite book (it certainly wasn’t my first favorite story), but the first chapter book that really stuck with me for years, that I read and re-read many times over, and that I would eagerly tell people was my favorite book was Lizard Music, by D. Manus Pinkwater.

I’m pretty sure I became aware of the book via one of those PBS shows where a guy reads you a chapter of a children’s book while using colored pencils to draw a scene illustrating the action. Cover to Cover or Book Bird or whatever. I sought out the book from there, and likely from the beloved Scholastic catalog, I obtained a version that had the kick-ass cover art pictured above.

The book is about a elementary school-aged boy (probably 12 years old, definitely not a teenager) who is left in the care of his older sister when his parents go out of town. But the sister takes off herself soon enough, leaving him some money and letting him fend for himself. The kid stays up late, orders pizza, watches a bunch of TV and at one point even tries one of his mom’s cigarettes. But the particulars of this kid being left to his own devices are just the backdrop to the strange things that begin happening to him: one night, after staying up to watch The Island of Dr. Moreau (or a fictional stand-in for that film), Victor witnesses a strange transmission of human-sized lizards playing instruments, that comes on just before the station sign-off ends the television programming for the day.

Fellow Lizard Music freaks and/or enthusiasts, please become a paid subscriber to continue reading the words!