Lizard People

August 27, 2007
Readers who enjoy a novel with a subversive streak will relish the gamesmanship in this idiosyncratic, genre-hopping story from the author of Dead Connection
. As the novel begins, Ben Mander, a junior, rushes into the high school office, where his psychotic mother, in the middle of a loud, delusional episode, is attacking a secretary: “She... is a Lizard!” All but abandoned by his father, Ben feels a kinship with Marco, a youth he meets in the lobby of the psychiatric hospital as both wait for their mothers to be admitted. Price takes care with the details—the father's slow backing away, the social workers and their limits, hospital and insurance policies—and he slowly builds a sense of Ben's growing isolation and immersion in adult problems. Meanwhile, Ben meets Marco again, and becomes engrossed in the stories Marco tells, about a future 2,000 years away that offers hope for people like Ben's mother—but that also overlaps, to an alarming degree, with the substance of Ben's mother's delusions. The pace quickens and the plot grows increasingly complex as the author blurs (for readers as well as for Ben) the distinctions between Ben's experiences and his expectations that they are valid, that he has not crossed over into his mother's illness. Raising questions about time travel and using extremes of mental health, Price's story taps into classic teenage feelings of alienation and gives them an original exploration. Ages 12-up.

September 1, 2007
Gr 9 Up-Ben Mander's mother can't or won't take medication to control her mental illness, and his father has left home and will no longer help. The teen does his best to cope, but when his mother makes a scene in the school office and has to be physically removed, Ben is not sure how he will continue. While she is being admitted to the psychiatric unit, yet again, he meets Marco, who says that his mother is also there. Through a series of meetings, Marco tells a fantastic story of traveling through a wormhole to the year 4000 where he meets Lizard People, much like the ones that frighten Mrs. Mander in her delusional states. Unsure of what to believe, Ben goes back and forth trying to maintain his own reality in spite of overwhelming odds. In the end, all problems do not miraculously disappear, but the troubled teen gets the help he needs. Price writes honestly and with compassion about a number of issues: living with a parent who has a mental illness, the fear of inheriting this affliction, hoping for a cure, and the lack of support available for families. Characters are believable, and the plot, alternating between reality and the future land of the lizards, moves quickly and contains enough mystery to keep readers involved."Wendy Smith-D'Arezzo, Loyola College, Baltimore, MD"

Copyright 2007 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2007
High-schooler Ben is overwhelmed. His father has disappeared, leaving Ben to cope with his mentally ill mom, who believes that she is one of the Lizard People who will take over the world. After his mother enters a psychiatric hospital, Ben meets a fellow teen, Marco, whose mother has also been admitted. Over the next several weeks, the two boys struggle with their mothers care and begin a tentative friendship. Then Marco spins a tale of time travel to the year 4000, where he claims to have learned the cure for mental illness. As Marco incorporates the Lizard People into his story, Ben is increasingly spooked. Whos crazy now? Author Price creates a strong, realistic view of a caretaker teen whose adolescence is hijacked by a parents mental illness. In addition to coping with his day-to-day survival, Ben must also face an additional terrorhis own potential madness. Prices graphic depiction of Bens gradual escape from reality into a future without mental illness is a powerful metaphor and a savvy message that brings real hope to readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)