Eleven-year-old Billie Rae lives with her dad at Swumperland, an ecotour business in the Florida Everglades. Billie Rae is in charge of the petting zoo, where she keeps careful watch over her animals. There’s Ziggy, an enormous and lonely python, Greta the cantankerous turtle, and Slipper, an enigmatic pig frog. And Billie Rae has a new animal on the way—an addition to the petting zoo that she hopes will distract her from her disastrous last day of school and her mom’s absence.

Bernard is a lizard, freshly hatched into the terrarium Billie Rae has prepared for the new and exotic arrival. Billie Rae doesn’t know Bernard is there, but Ziggy the python, eager for a friend, notices him immediately. As Bernard explores the comforts of "In Here" with the coaching of Ziggy, the new resident is dropped into Bernard's tank. Aurelia doesn’t like the petting zoo one bit. She remembers what it’s like to be wild, and she wants out.

Allison Bell’s debut novel explores evergreen middle grade themes of family, friendship, empathy, responsibility, and independence. The chapters rotate between perspectives—Bernard (the lizard), Ziggy (the python), and Billie Rae (the human)—and the narrator often speaks to the reader directly. The pitch-perfect middle grade voice, short chapters, and surprising, action-packed, and often humorous plot makes this a compulsively readable novel and an excellent choice for classroom and family read-alouds. For readers who love Hoot by Carl Hiassen, The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, and A Wolf Called Wander by Rosanne Parry.