I honestly have no idea what the point of the story, The Lizard was. The art of J. Borges never felt fleshed out and the story presented by Jose Saramago seems to have no point to it. Perhaps it is the way Nick Caistor and Lucia Caistor translated the text and therefore, the original language to English might not flow nicely to my ears. Perhaps it was just something deeper in the story I was missing as I was too focused on the surface part of the story.
According to the publisher the targeted age group is ages 6 to 9. I do not see a child sitting still long enough to finish it. The art has classic Latin American look to it. Beautiful to look at, but abstract, nonetheless. The colors are both bold and muted at the same time. One spot says a white bird comes out of the lizard and the only color I could see was black and red. The woodcuts illustrations are creative, but I had trouble reading the text and looking at them at the same time.
The story is a folk tale of Brazil. I am not sure if it an original or a classical tale I am unfamiliar with. Regardless, I did not really see a moral to it. I am perfectly willing to say that I missed the point entirely and should reread, but then again, I just might not be the audience this story was meant for. It would be interesting to see how others have interpreted this picture book.