Pizza at Sally's: Read Aloud Grade K

Monica Wellington is an outstanding children's author who comes up with creative, educational books that are a delight to read and view.

Some writer/illustrators can take a good idea and turn it into something a little special. "Pizza at Sally's" might have been a rather formulaic, linear account of pizza making, but Monica Wellington treats us to a superior pizza book. The winning ingredients include a unique artistic style, a clear, engaging story, and a tasty concluding payoff for either the rapacious or the reluctant reader. The illustrations, "colored copies of photos, labels, and other ephemera" pasted on gouache-prepared paper have a toy-like quality, as if your Lego decals leapt from signs and trains onto the pages.. Coupled the informal font, the look is a relaxed photo realism. The combination is much warmer than most of the computer-generated images I've seen. Photos of Sally's (she's the pizza maker) tomatoes complement shiny drawings of patterned green leaves, and tall background buildings with luminescent colored windowpanes hint at the urban setting. "Sally the pizza maker grows tomatoes in her community garden in the city." This is an exciting setting for non-city kids who have never seen a rooftop garden. Wellington also skillfully mixes farm scenes with their destination: The neighborhood stores where Sally buys her pizza ingredients. There's a beautiful, atmospheric picture of the cheese shop with giant company labels hanging from the wall, and there's an unexpected lower panel that shows us the cows grazing many miles from the cheese shop interior. It's a bold montage that works extremely well. At 11:00 AM, Sally--with her ubiquitous cat smiling up at her--begins making pizza! It's homemade of course, "Cut, chop, stir, and simmer. There are good smells in the air. Sally makes her tomato sauce." Yeast, oil, salt, and flour start the pizza dough, and we see a mixture of foods and measuring devices on one 2-page spread. At this point, I began to ponder a very serious question: Does Sally belong to the "through the dough" school of pizza-making, or whether she disdains such dramatics? (These two methods are hotly debated wherever pizza is taken seriously.) Culinary merits aside, I was thrilled to see that Sally twirls the dough--"Whoosh"--up in the air. Finally, "everything is ready to put together." As she layers the ingredients (the cat with its paws on the counter), Wellington uses some artistic license to bend health code regulations), hungry kids wait with great anticipation. And the verdict? The pizza certainly looks delicious, and you can almost smell it as Sally slides it into the fiery oven. However, Sally's customers are the best judges, and the youngsters grab slices and close their eyes in pizza ecstasy. When the shop closes at 9pm, the chalkboard says "Arrivederci," and Sally and her little feline helper relax and enjoy a slice together. A truly kid-pleasing book might include Sally's pizza recipe as an après-story treat, and, as with the entire book, Ms. Wellington does not disappoint. There's much to savor in this sensational book!

He was only 5 when his mom started reading this book to him. He loves it so much that they keep renewing it from the bookstore. I thought that for his 6th birthday I would surprise him with his own copy! He is going to be so happy. I just told his mom and she says he going to "die!"

We LOVE the Monica Wellington books. She uses an incredible range of colors, and writes such charming text. We have almost everything she has written for children. This book is fun, especially for people who love pizza. She talks about all the ingredients and gives simple but whimsical illustrations to show how Sally makes her pizza. The cat and dog who figure in most books are also present. The text is simple for younger children (our daughter is a preschooler), and, as always, there are recipes at the back. A nice, simple, colorful read.