Review by Ian Keogh
Tales of a Lizard Boy, or Tales of A Seventh Grade Lizard Boy if you’re in North America, takes teenage feelings of loneliness, isolation and plain not fitting in, and transfers them to a boy who once lived beneath the Earth now having to attend school on the surface. He’s naturally awkward, and not helped by having to keep the secret of being a lizard boy, a race portrayed as threatening on a popular TV show.
Alienation and isolation are common themes in books aimed at children, the path being an instructional overcoming of adversity using personal talents, inspiring readers who’re uncertain to take a look at themselves. To an extent that’s the formula Jonathan Hill applies, but it’s all in the telling, and here Hill successfully departs from the formula. Tommy Tomkins, or Booger Lizk’t as he actually is, is the focal point, using a mask to disguise his true appearance, but also able to manipulate his facial features. This form of super power in effect isn’t overplayed, and in fact is almost always used when Tommy becomes a less sympathetic figure, crossing a couple of lines.
Hill uses simple cartooning to focus on the characters, with Tommy not the only outsider. Dung’s family is Vietnamese, and Scarlett is an individual, so an immediate target for unpleasant children. They bond despite Dung’s family being in the area as part of a team investigating the mysterious sinkholes that have appeared and which seem exceptionally deep. Hill factors in the Victory X TV show where lizard people are hunted as threats, and which adults may remember as actual 1980s show V.
In addition to the well presented insecurities of all young teenagers, the prevailing threat for Tommy is exposure, and Hill ties that up imaginatively and unexpectedly toward the end. Along the way the characters always ring true, there are some funny moments, and the value of loyal friends is emphasised. Under either title, this is a winner, although it’s also deceptive under either title as this is one connected eight chapter story, not individual tales.
