Invisible Lizard by Kurt Cyrus, Illustrated by Andy Atkins is a fun children’s read about Napoleon the Chameleon who just wants to make friends but people struggle to see him because, well, he is really good at the chameleon thing. The story is easy for young ones to follow and features a colorful and determined lizard and playful monkey and parrot.

I can not read and review a book about a chameleon without some Culture Club reference. So here you go: the illustrations support the story line and offer lots of opportunity for ‘I spy’ and interaction during story time. ‘If your colors were like my dreams; red gold and green; red gold and green’

The author uses the word ‘spiffy’ to describe Napoleon and his digs and ‘shashay’ to describe one tactic Napoleon employs to attract friends.  I love these two words, they do not really appear in any of our other books but my little reader picked right up on them. I will let him listen to Rupal’s Supermodel later…  While shashaying ultimately does not lead Napoleon achieve his aim (nor is not one of the methods in the other classic “how to win friends” type book), it does let you in on his personality and, spoiler alert, the parrot and monkey do befriend Napoleon and celebrate his uniqueness.

I recommend this book and think it is ‘spiffy’, just like Napoleon. And to quote my young reader (2.75 years old) – ‘this is a nice nice book about an iguana.’ 😉

I received a copy of this book to review from Sleeping Bear Press but I was not financially compensated, nor required to say something positive, in any way. The opinions expressed are my own and are based on my experience and observations while reading this book.