diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -160,6 +160,7 @@
  "eyre",
  "serde",
  "serde_json",
+ "thiserror",
  "walkdir",
 ]
 
@@ -243,6 +244,26 @@
  "proc-macro2",
  "quote",
  "unicode-ident",
+]
+
+[[package]]
+name = "thiserror"
+version = "2.0.11"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+checksum = "d452f284b73e6d76dd36758a0c8684b1d5be31f92b89d07fd5822175732206fc"
+dependencies = [
+ "thiserror-impl",
+]
+
+[[package]]
+name = "thiserror-impl"
+version = "2.0.11"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+checksum = "26afc1baea8a989337eeb52b6e72a039780ce45c3edfcc9c5b9d112feeb173c2"
+dependencies = [
+ "proc-macro2",
+ "quote",
+ "syn",
 ]
 
 [[package]]
diff --git a/parakeet-lexgen/Cargo.toml b/parakeet-lexgen/Cargo.toml
--- a/parakeet-lexgen/Cargo.toml
+++ b/parakeet-lexgen/Cargo.toml
@@ -8,4 +8,5 @@
 eyre = "0.6.12"
 serde = { version = "1.0.217", features = ["derive"] }
 serde_json = "1.0.136"
+thiserror = "2.0.11"
 walkdir = "2.5.0"
diff --git a/parakeet-lexgen/src/main.rs b/parakeet-lexgen/src/main.rs
--- a/parakeet-lexgen/src/main.rs
+++ b/parakeet-lexgen/src/main.rs
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 use clap::Parser;
+use std::collections::BTreeMap;
 use walkdir::WalkDir;
 
 mod types;
@@ -12,6 +13,14 @@
     /// Turn off lexicon validation - this may cause Rust compilation to fail on generated types.
     #[clap(short, long)]
     no_validate: bool,
+}
+
+#[derive(Debug, thiserror::Error)]
+enum Error {
+    #[error("{0}")]
+    Serde(#[from] serde_json::Error),
+    #[error("{0}")]
+    Io(#[from] std::io::Error),
 }
 
 fn main() -> eyre::Result<()> {
@@ -31,7 +40,50 @@
                 true => Some(path.to_path_buf()),
                 false => None,
             }
-        }).collect::<Vec<_>>();
+        })
+        .collect::<Vec<_>>();
+
+    let (parsed, errors) = lexicon_files
+        .into_iter()
+        .map(|path| {
+            let filename = path.display().to_string();
+
+            let file =
+                std::fs::File::open(path).map_err(|err| (filename.clone(), Error::from(err)))?;
+
+            let res = serde_json::from_reader::<_, types::Lexicon>(file)
+                .map_err(|err| (filename, Error::from(err)))?;
+
+            Ok(res)
+        })
+        .map(|v| match v {
+            Ok(v) => (Some(v), None),
+            Err(e) => (None, Some(e)),
+        })
+        .unzip::<_, _, Vec<_>, Vec<_>>();
+
+    // report the errors
+    for error in errors {
+        if let Some((filename, error)) = error {
+            eprintln!("Lexicon {filename} parse failed: {error}");
+        }
+    }
+
+    // pull all the valid lexicon files into a big map so we can run validation
+    let parsed = parsed
+        .into_iter()
+        .filter_map(|maybe_lexicon| match maybe_lexicon {
+            Some(lexicon) => Some((lexicon.id.clone(), lexicon)),
+            None => None,
+        })
+        .collect::<BTreeMap<_, _>>();
+
+    if !args.no_validate {
+        let failed = validate::validate(&parsed);
+        for (fail_nsid, fail_err) in failed {
+            eprintln!("Lexicon {fail_nsid} failed validation: {fail_err:?}");
+        }
+    }
 
     Ok(())
 }