Lizards are cute, and mostly harmless little creatures who most of us see outside, scampering away from their sunny spot when we walk by. A friend came home from a road trip one day, and saw this little lizard on the back of her couch. She was quite surprised, and was perplexed as to how it managed to get inside their house.Around the same time, Ms. M. became engaged to the love of her life, and the two happenings inspired A Lovely Lizard Love Story!

Grace, a teenager, and her mother have moved to Manhattan where she feels alienated and out of place, far from the ponds and farm where she grew up playing with bullfrogs and lizards, until she finds Fang & Claw, a reptile store, and meets the owner's son, Walter.

Six short stories by a Japanese woman writer known for her unusual themes. In Blood and Water, a woman abandons the religious commune where she was raised, goes to the big city and finds another idol of worship, a charismatic lover. The story looks at the connection between spiritual and romantic fervor. By the author of Kitchen.

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.

Napoleon, the spiffiest chameleon in the jungle, is a pretty happy guy. And why shouldn't he be? After all, he loves living on his spiffy limb, and blending in with its colorful foliage. And after a few missteps, he now has friends. Mike the monkey and Polly the parrot often come to play. The spiffy limb shakes with fun and it seems like the laughter will never stop. Except it does when Mike meets Mooka and Polly meets her Pedro. His friends have found their perfect mates and Napoleon is now back to being on his own. What will it take for the loneliest chameleon in the jungle to find his own true love?

When Snake starts sleeping on the rock where Lizard lives, Lizard must figure out how to get his home back.

Grade level: 1, 2, 3, k, p, e.

Holbrook the lizard has an artist's soul, but when his paintings are ridiculed by the owls, geckoes, and other creatures in his desert town, he decides to seek his fortune in the big city, unaware of the dangers of urban life.

Poor Napoleon. Despite being the spiffiest chameleon in the jungle, he has no friends. And why is that? Because no one can see him! As everyone knows, chameleons blend in with their surroundings. Napoleon is practically invisible. So he tries every trick he can think of, from waving his arms to weaving a welcome mat to making funny faces, to get the other jungle animals to see him. But it's his final trick that really gets him noticed.

Shawn doesn’t want to live the plain-old-ordinary lizard life. He doesn’t like routine. He wants to be extraordinary. He is a big dreamer. Shawn and his dreaming sometimes leads him to being misunderstood, but in a magical moment, his life will change forever.