Chicken-Obsessed Lizards Star In Daniel Pinkwater Reissue
Image by NYRB
By Josh Nathan-Kazis August 10, 2017
Daniel Pinkwater’s wackadoo classic “Lizard Music” is out in a new paperback reissue from New York Review Books, and it’s a beaut.
Pinkwater, a genius kids’ writer and former cultist, hasn’t had a new novel out since 2013, which is a long time for a guy who has written something like 100 books since 1970. (He has put out some picture books in the past couple of years, including one about a Yiddish chicken.)
In the absence of new novels, the NYRB’s kid’s book imprint has a nice substitute: an elegant new paperback edition of “Lizard Music,” one of Pinkwater’s first, illustrated with prints by Pinkwater himself.
One of Pinkwater’s own favorites, “Lizard Music” is about a boy who is ditched at home by his vacationing parents and catches a late-night TV broadcast that leads him and a nutty hobo to a floating island filled with chicken-worshipping lizards.
In an essay a few years ago, I said “Lizard Music” was “Pynchon-for-kids.” I forget what I meant by that, but it sounds good, and I stand by it. Read “Lizard Music” and tell me if I was right.
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
