Do You Really Want A Lizard

"Several lizards (and the narrator) teach a young girl the responsibility--and the joys--of caring for a pet lizard. Includes "Is this pet right for me?" quiz"--

Mischievous hamsters (and the narrator) teach a young boy the responsibility--and the joys--of owning a hamster. Includes "Is this pet right for me?" quiz.

"Several lizards (and the narrator) teach a young girl the responsibility--and the joys--of caring for a pet lizard. Includes "Is this pet right for me?" quiz"--

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.

This book provides an overview of the diversity of lizards and their major adaptive features. The authors discuss the latest research findings and provide new hypotheses about lizard diversity.

Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, has achieved a bizarre cult status since his death in 1971. Morrison was one of the most popular and controversial figures to emerge during the sixties; described as an 'erotic politician', poet, shaman, Dionysian drunk, his style and influence have grown steadily in the twenty years since his death, so that the real man has gradually disappeared behind the legend. Now, in The Lizard King: The Essential Jim Morrison, Morrison's biographer Jerry Hopkins, co-author of No One Here Gets Out Alive, reassesses Jim's life and provides fresh insights into him as a human being rather than the myth that he has become. But this reassessment is only part of this remarkable book. At its heart is a series of interviews with Jim Morrison by journalists including Hopkins himself, Ben Fong-Torres, John Tobler, Bob Chorush, Salli Stevenson, Richard Goldstein and the late John Carpenter, Morrison shows himself to have been articulate, intelligent and witty. Published uncut, these interviews provide a unique insight into a man who consciously created his own myth, then lived to regret it. Stripping bare the facts from the fantasies of Jim's death in Paris in 1971, and taking a long hard look at what has happened since to the people who he left behind, The Lizard King: The Essential Jim Morrison brings sharply into focus the broken dreams and unreachable ideals of one of the sixties' most enduring icons.

Readers might know someone with a snake as a pet. But after reading this book, they'll think twice about getting one themselves. The US Humane Society recommends that snakes be left in their native habitats. It's very difficult for people to create artificial environments that can keep snakes healthy and content. This book contains stories of people who tried to keep snakes such as constrictors as pets with sometimes terrifying results. Readers discover why it's best to respect wild animals for what they are: wild.

Welcome to Italian police detective Nic Costa's Rome: the side of the city the tourist board does not want you to see. "Hewson does more than provide a thrilling read. He saves you the airfare to Italy. When you turn the last page, you'll think you've been there" LINWOOD BARCLAY "David Hewson's Rome is dark and tantalizing, seductive and dangerous, a place where present-day crimes ring with the echoes of history" TESS GERRITSEN "David Hewson is one of the finest thriller writers working today" STEVE BERRY "No author has ever brought Rome so alive for me - nor made it seem so sinister" PETER JAMES "[Hewson is] a master plot maker" BOOKLIST _______________________ In Venice, the world's most beguiling city, someone has made an art of murder. In exile in Venice, after offending people they shouldn't have, Detective Nic Costa and his partner Gianni Peroni are offered a chance to return to Rome. All they have to do is wrap up an apparently open-and-shut murder case on the island of Murano, where a glassmaker killed his wife and subsequently died himself when his furnace exploded. The pair investigate, but as they dig more deeply into the insular glass-making community and the strange Arcangeli family, things don't quite add up. With increasing pressure from above to come to a conclusion the detectives are increasingly sure is a cover-up, events spiral quickly out of control - with devastating consequences . . . Fans of Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti, Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano and Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen, as well as Louise Penny, Jeffey Siger and Martin Walker, will love this thrilling mystery series - perfect for readers who enjoy dark and complex character-led mysteries with multiple twists. PRAISE FOR THE LIZARD'S BITE: "Wonderfully complex and finely paced . . . Newcomers as well as series fans will be enthralled" Publishers Weekly Starred Review "Superb" Booklist "Part spaghetti Western, part buddy movie . . . and more engaging than a Venetian sunset" Rocky Mountain News "The series goes from strength to strength . . . another outstanding Nic Costa tale from David Hewson" Alan W., 5* GoodReads review "I read it in two days!" Jeanette T., 5* GoodReads review "Many interesting characters and much intrigue" David S., 5* GoodReads review THE NIC COSTA MYSTERIES, IN ORDER: 1. A Season for the Dead 2. The Villa of Mysteries 3. The Sacred Cut 4. The Lizard's Bite 5. The Seventh Sacrament 6. The Garden of Evil 7. Dante's Numbers (aka The Dante Killings) 8. City of Fear (aka The Blue Demon) 9. The Fallen Angel 10. The Savage Shore