Lizards Take Over!
How Reptiles Invaded an American City
illustrated by Gayle Cobb
Braughler Books, 2026
48 pages, age 7 and up
ISBN 979-8-89390-070-5
Paperback: Bookshop.org | Barnes & Noble | Amazon
eBook: Kobo | Barnes & Noble | Amazon
Decades ago, ten Italian wall lizards invaded a major American city — reportedly via a kid’s sock. Ten-year-old George Rau caught them on a family vacation and released them in his Cincinnati back yard. The lizards thrived, and their numbers soared—without damaging the city’s ecosystem. They captivated herpetologists, whose research led to surprising results.
When author Kerrie Hollihan found the so-called “Lazarus Lizards” in her back yard, she was puzzled and started digging for information Now the award-winning author of Mummies Exposed! and Bones Unearthed! brings this story to young readers — and to grownups who cheer them on.
Lizards Take Over!: When Reptiles Invaded an American City will be on the shelf in Fall 2026. Aimed at early elementary students, the picture book (illustrated by Gayle Cobb) with back matter and other parent/teacher-friendly resources is published by Braughler Books.
“Lazarus Lizards showed up in my yard in Blue Ash fifteen years ago,” Hollihan says. “They are a local legend, so I decided to tell their story.”
As Hollihan investigated, she discovered the Lizard League, a group of biology students who work under the leadership Eric Gangloff, PhD, a biology professor at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio. Gangloff invited her to observe his students during their summer investigation of the lizards in Cincinnati’s Alms and Ault Parks. Gangloff completed his research thanks to an NSF (National Science Foundation) grant “Success in the Anthropocene: Evolutionary Ecology of the Common Wall Lizard in Ohio.”
“Kids and adults have much to learn from the very ground they walk on,” Hollihan says. “Look down, look up, look across the street and across your town, and there you’ll find things to study. Discovery is so much fun!”
Reviews
“Hollihan’s picture book tells the true story of how 10 Italian lizards were smuggled into Cincinnati, Ohio, in the 1950s and flourished as an invasive species.
“Little did George Rau know, as a young boy in 1951, that the 10 lizards he caught near Milan, Italy, and brought back to Cincinnati in one of his socks would survive when released into his backyard and spread across the city — 75 years later, their population has climbed to one million. The Podarcis muralis maculiventris (the spotted belly wall lizard) has proven itself well suited to Cincinnati’s climate and ecosystem, and as the species continues to expand its range, scientists have taken increased interest in the reasons behind its thriving — asking not merely what damage an invasive species might do, but also what we might learn from its adaptiveness as climate change and environmental shifts make evolutionary ecology an imperative field of study. Hollihan writes in straightforward prose, describing how the lizards have changed to fit their new niche and posing key questions about why it happened and how we can use that information to help plan a better future. Cobb’s full-page and double-page-spread illustrations combine muted realism with a somewhat abstract quality, capturing both the real-life immediacy of the subject matter and the haziness of an uncertain future. The human characters reflect a diversity of racial backgrounds.
“An eye-opening account of the unforeseen consequences of introducing fauna to a new environment.” (Kirkus Reviews)
“Kerrie does an excellent job of telling the story of these lovable lizards and the people who study them in a way that is easily digestible, while inspiring the imagination and curiosity that is at the core of the sciences.
“One of my favorite aspects of the book is how many questions are included using the fundamentals of any scientific question: what, when, why, and how. While not every question is explicitly answered, it reflects the information that we know currently, and it inspires the reader to come up with their own ideas on how these lizards have taken over Cincinnati.” (Alyssa Head, master’s candidate in herpetology, San Diego State University, and former “Lizard League” member)
