48. A Pizza the Size of the Sun by Jack Prelutsky

A PIZZA THE SIZE OF THE SUN by Jack Prelutsky (Scholastic, 1997)

Drawings by James Stevenson

GENRE: Poetry / Humor

HONORS: ABC Children’s Booksellers Choices Award, Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Books

REVIEW:

A Pizza the Size of the Sun is a collection of humorous poems by the master of children’s poetry, Jack Prelutsky.  Along with the drawings by James Stevenson, Prelutsky introduces readers to a smorgasbord of memorable characters, including Lester the levitator, Herman Sherman Thurman the perfectionist, and Gladiola Gloppe the inventive soup chef, among others.  The poetry plays to kids with an abundance of bugs, animals, aliens, and even a magical hat.  With a mixture of short and longer poems, Prelutsky throws in a few new forms that will surely please kids, as well, such as a poem that wanders around the page, one written backwards, and another poem that never ends.

OPINION:

Whether through clever word play or crazy characters, the whole collection brings hilarity from start to finish.  This is a book that is just begging to be read aloud, sharing the laughter with others.  I enjoyed that the structure of the book makes it so that readers can open it at any point and they will not loose any of the humor.  The black and white drawings illuminate many of the outlandish topics, adding to Prelutsky’s wit—and in some cases, absurdity.  One of my favorite drawings is of the teenage hippopotamus, bouncing along with his boom box on his shoulder.  Because each poem plays with a completely different topic than the one before it, tweens will not get bored and many will want to read the book the whole way through.

IDEAS:

This book would be great for a poetry library display, as well as to choose as a read aloud book.  The book would work well with a library program on poetry to give tweens examples on different types of poetry and invite them to construct their own.