Lizard Music

Written & illustrated by Daniel Pinkwater

A boy investigates mysterious lizard musicians appearing on TV, leading to a surreal adventure.

4.2/5 Goodreads · 2,278 ratings

160 pages· 32,980 words· Est. 3.5 hour read

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Bookroo's summary

In the 1970s, with his parents away, Victor explores the mystery of lizard musicians on TV. Teaming up with the eccentric Chicken Man and his hen, Claudia, they embark on a surreal adventure to a floating island. Are these lizards from outer space or somewhere even stranger? Victor's curiosity leads him into a world where logic bends and anything is possible. Will he uncover the truth behind the lizards' bizarre appearances?

From the publisher

An ALA Notable Book Kids ages 9-12 will “delight in [the] oddness” of this Home Alone-style tale set in the 1970s–from a prolific children’s author who captures “a magic that’s not like anyone else’s” (Neil Gaiman). With Victor’s parents out of town, he is free to investigate the mysterious lizard musicians who have recently appeared on TV . . . Things Victor loves: pizza with anchovies, grape soda, B movies aired at midnight, the evening news. And with his parents off at a resort and his older sister shirking her babysitting duties, Victor has plenty of time to indulge himself and to try a few things he’s been curious about. Exploring the nearby city of Hogboro, he runs into a curious character known as the Chicken Man (a reference to his companion, an intelligent hen named Claudia who lives under his hat). The Chicken Man speaks brilliant nonsense, but he seems to be hip to the lizard musicians (real lizards, not men in lizard suits) who’ve begun appearing on Victor’s television after the broadcast of the late-late movie. Are the lizards from outer space? From “other space”? Together Victor and the Chicken Man, guided by the able Claudia, journey to the lizards’ floating island, a strange and fantastic place that operates with an inspired logic of its own.

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