Raygan Kelly

October 19, 2025

I don’t really have a question, just a thank you.

When I was in (I think) third grade, I found Lizard Music in my elementary school library. I think it may have been one of the first books I ever picked for myself; certainly it’s one of the earliest I still remember. When I read it, it felt like forbidden literature. Like I was getting away with something by reading it. I felt exactly how I imagine Victor did, discovering the lizards themselves. I think this book completely and irrevocably altered my brain chemistry.

I’m now 40 years old and I’ve read the book to my own three kids. What an experience. As a child of the 80s, I had to interpret some of the 70s-isms for them. It’s a foreign concept to them that there might be a TV broadcast that only comes on at a certain time, or that can’t be easily rewound or Googled. But I believe the magic of it still came across. I’m taking a more hands off approach with your other books, hoping they’ll encounter one and think it’s their own idea, and make their own discovery. If they happen to be turned face-out on the library shelves when my kids come by, who’s to say how that happened.

I’ve heard that there will soon be a Lizard Music movie. I’m excited for you and for anyone who this might help discover your work. For myself, I have the natural mixed feelings anyone does when something special to them suddenly gets wide attention or a reinterpretation. Regardless, I’m very much looking forward to taking my kids to see it, and especially to hearing the lizards play.

This is what I said to the guy who's making the movie--only I didn't have to, because movie guys, the good ones, understand it perfectly. Some of our extremely early ancestors were sitting around the cave, gnawing on mastodon bones. One of them stood up and told the first story ever. Another hominid thought, "I want to do that too, only when I tell it, I'm going to finish with a squeak instead of a grunt." Then another Zinjanthropus thought, "I like those stories, but mine is going to end with two grunts." A couple of milleniums later the first Alley Oop to draw images all along the cave wall, ran down the line with a newly-invented torch and movies were born. I have mixed feelings too and they are all good ones. Thanks for liking my turn at telling the same old story. I liked yours.