Holbrook: A Lizard's Tale

This creative book will surprise and captivate. Bonny Becker's inspired story of a small lizard with a love of art will tickle you. If you loved James and the Giant Peach, you will enjoy this story. Becker's play on actual artists' names and talents and the information in the Author's Notes at the end of the book are enlightening.

Congratulations to Bonny Becker for bringing us her menagerie of characters. They take us beyond the question of `what is art' into the larger theme: the passion of self-expression. We follow Holbrook on his quest as he leaves behind the comforts (?!) of Rattler's Bend for the uncertainty of the Big City. Along the way Becker gives Holbrook just the right blend of self-doubt and courage. Entertaining obstacles along the path of the story hold interest all the way to a nice twist at the end (which this reviewer will not reveal!) Details and motivations feel perfect.

What does a children's author do when they want to write about adult characters dealing with problems only the fully-grown would face? By and large, the author has two choices. They could either skew the book towards the YA market and write something like, "Montmorency: Liar, Thief, Gentleman", or they could make everyone in their book into animals. In the case of Bonny Becker's, "Holbrook: A Lizard's Tale", the author has chosen to opt for the latter, and you wouldn't want it any other way. Her book poses a particularly lofty query (i.e. What is art?) within a context that many kids will understand. With books like Neil Waldman's, "Out of the Shadows", offering kids a chance to see how artists are born, it's nice to see Becker come from the fictional side of the spectrum to offer a similar kind of view."Holbrook" is a small unassuming examination of what it means to create and what that creation may be worth. It isn't that Holbrook feels unappreciated, exactly. He knows that his neighbors in Rattler's Bend don't understand his need to paint "squiggles" (as they call them) rather than realistic art. It's just that he feels so utterly alone. Nobody appreciates the burning drive Holbrook has to create original paintings that make him feel a certain way. So when he hears that there's going to be an artistic exhibition in the metropolitan Golden City, Holbrook's out the door and on the Golden City's streets quick as a wink. Trouble is, the city's a vast and hustling place and Holbrook's not certain of his place in it. So when art patron Count Rumolde brings the lizard into his home, Holbrook thinks he's hit quite a spate of good luck. Unfortunately, things are not always what they seem in the city. Now our hero has found the dark side of the artistic temperament and unless he and some newfound friends use their heads, they're going to find their careers (and possibly their lives) cut short in a terrifying end. Yes, it's talking animals wearing clothes, but less of the fuzzy woodland creature variety and more along the lines of the Hermux Tantamoq book, "Times Stops For No Mouse", by Michael Hoeye. Becker isn't cutesy here. Her world has been well-thought out and the arc of the story occurs in just the right way to get kids interested in Holbrook's predicament(s). I have a slight dislike of any book that takes the name of real life stars and gives them anthropomorphized names. Turning Margot Fonteyn into Margot Frogtayne, for example. Becker makes up for it, though, by including an Author's Note that lists the real artists and what their accomplishments really were. The accompanying line drawings by illustrator Abby Carter bear a mild resemblance to a slightly more expressive E.H. Shepard. There have been plenty of children's books published that question the meaning behind "art" but usually those books zero in on a single style. You can read books about painters or photographers or writers, and never really come to grips wit