How Pizza Came to Queens
Written by Dayal Kaur Khalsa
Illustrated by Dayal Kaur Khalsa
Reviewed by Stephanie R. (age 7) & Matt P. (age 7)
Could you ever imagine not having pizza around? Well this is a story of how it came to New York City. Mrs. Pelligrino is a lady who came from Italy and she just loves pizza. She came to NYC to visit Mrs. Penny. Mrs. Pelligrino was sad because there was no such thing as pizza in Queens (which is part of New York City.) Mrs. Penny's three daughters and a friend try to make Mrs. Pelligrino happy by giving her pizza. The four girls tried to find out what pizza is so they looked up pizza in the library. They looked in several cookbooks before they finally found the recipe for pizza! They bought the ingredients then they put them in the play store. The play store was a big, big, big box. They gave the ingredients to Mrs. Pelligrino and then...they all made pizza. They loved it and they loved the smell also. Everybody in Queens loved pizza then.
The illustrations were flat. The colors were bright. Each page has details. When there are so many details you have to look very, very closely at the pictures.
I (Stephanie) think the hidden message is that you should make people comfortable when they come to visit. I like the part when they made pizza because they finally made what they wanted to make. Matt's grandma lived in Italy but she doesn't make pizza at home. His cousin's grandma does. Matt's cousin Anthony went to Italy and he said that he went to a pizzeria there and it was really good. Do you wonder how good the pizza is in Italy? Is Queen's pizza better?
Somebody who loves pizza would love this book. But not everybody who loves pizza would love this book. We would recommend it to librarians everywhere.