One Pizza One penny

One Pizza, One Penny Written by: K.T. Hao Illustrations by: Giuliano Ferri
Translated by: Roxanne Hsu Feldman
Who knew that Chris Croc and Ben Bear living on Sunflower Street in Sunnyville would change a city in one day; That’s the big picture painted in this cute easy to read children’s book. The two main characters are a bear and a crocodile that are nothing short of the best cooks around. Ben Bear makes amazing pizza’s and Chris Croc and his cakes are to die for so it’s no wonder that on a normal afternoon of sharing their food with each other that a strange man in a limo would ask for some cake which had never been given to the public let alone for money. It was astonishing and lead to both Ben and Chris selling their foods on the street. Unfortunately no one came to buy their cakes and throughout the day they exchange the one coin that was used to buy Chris’s cake the previous day from the man in the limo back and forth for each others food that they once shared with no cost. At the end of the story a bird comes to buy a pizza and cake and sees that all the food is gone (eaten from Ben and Chris) and declared that the next day he will bring all his friends to buy their food because obviously it was so amazing because all of it was gone. The next page is a two page spread of animals selling their best homemade foods and a line that says “Isn’t it funny what one gold coin can do”.
This book is a fun, cute story about friends some what starting a revolution. And throughout this book style is defiantly a big influence in the imagery of the story. The writer uses a mass abundance of adjectives to describe not only her charterers but the food, daily events, and conversations within the book as well. The sentences are short and easy to follow along with as it moves you through the plot and will keep the child engaged and looking at the vivid pictures to conclude what the writing claims to be happening. The format of the book is great for its huge, fuzzy, impressionistic pictures that convey and add to the book’s style. They cover the whole page while the words lay upon the image. The pictures also use a wide variety of orange, green, and yellow color and are very easy to look at. I would use this book is class as a fun read aloud, to empathize sharing with one another, friendships, or how one little thing changes a lot. This could use this book as a transition book for such things has big changes in society and how they come about (pertaining back to the coin). Since the book is a beginning easy to read book I would encourage children to read it on their own as well.