Iguana-kun no ojama na mainichi

For Juri’s eleventh birthday, Great-Uncle Tokuda gives her what he calls a “living dinosaur,” which turns out to be an iguana. He tells her to care for it in the sunroom that her family recently added to their house. Reluctantly, Juri becomes the iguana’s caretaker. The sunroom was supposed to be a place for her father to read and her mother to raise plants, but Great-Uncle Tokuda is head of trustees at the school where Juri’s father teaches, making it difficult to refuse him.

    Juri starts having to wake up early to prepare a special salad for the iguana, which has been named “Yadamon” (“I don’t wanna”). One day she forgets to feed Yadamon, and he destroys the room’s books, potted plants, and curtains. Another day Yadamon seems to be ill, and Juri rushes around searching for a vet. When her parents fight about the new pet, Juri goes out in the middle of the night, hoping to abandon Yadamon. At school, the other children tease her, calling her “Iguana Girl.”

    Gradually, however, the family becomes accustomed to Yadamon, even fond of him. He “did not fuss, or become worried, sad, or angry. He was a creature completely unlike a human—a creature that lived unhurriedly in a dream of ancient green.” When Great-Uncle Tokuda demands they return Yadamon to him, Juri’s father stands up to Tokuda for the first time, shouting, “Forget it, you old coot!” He is fired, but the household has come to see Yadamon as a valuable life, and decided to coexist with him.

    With simple but warm illustrations and humorous writing, this book leaves the reader with much to think about on subjects like pets, life, and coexistence with other beings. (SY)