In response to his mother's queries about what he will need to do in order to make a little salamander comfortable if he keeps it in his room, Brian imagines appropriate changes: he'll bring in moss and leaves, crickets and frogs, insects and birds, and, finally, he'll plant trees and open the room to the sky. Meanwhile, in luminous, carefully imagined paintings, Johnson depicts the room being transformed into the chameleon's forest home. A valid lesson, delivered with sensitivity to both the child and his captive.