Pizza
Pat
Story by Rita Golden Gelman
Illustrated by Will Terry
Review
by: Christina
Mark
Pizza
Pat is an updated version of The House That Jack Built, but instead of a
house, Pat puts together a beautiful, gooey, bubbly, warm pizza.
There are so many fun, descriptive adjectives used in this book and the
words flow in such a rhythmic fashion that children love reciting the
story, joining in with the storyteller. The story follows Pat
through each step of his pizza-making process. Finally, Pat creates
a delicious, steamy masterpiece. As he lets the pizza cool and cleans
up the kitchen, some sneaky, hungry mice quickly carry the pizza away and
devour it. Poor Pat. It looks like he is going to have to
start all over again, which means you'll have to read the book again.
This book is one of those stories that children love to
memorize. Each
time a new ingredient is added, the preceding ingredient is subsequently
mentioned. For example, "This is the dough, all stretchy and
floppy, that lay in the the tray that Pat bought" is followed by
"This is the sauce, all gooey and gloppy, that covered the dough all
stretchy and floppy, that lay in the tray that Pat bought".
This rhythmic pattern continues throughout the book as cheese "white
and sloppy" and sausages "spicy and choppy" are added to
the pizza and the pizza is cooked.
The illustrations are wonderful as well. Will
Terry does a superb job of
depicting each and every one of Pat's facial expressions so well. We
can see how intense Pat is while he's chopping the sausage, how much fun
he has sprinkling the cheese on, and how proud he is when the pizza is
done. We then see Pat with a look of utter amazement when his pizza
has disappeared and then we see Pat blubbering when he realizes his hard
work was all for naught. Finally, we see those naughty little mice
with their fat bellies and their contented faces. All in all, this
book is a delight for all ages. I highly recommend it for ages 2-8.
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Now
