Cosmic Pizza Party

Gr 4-7–This punny, cheesy brainchild of Murphy, Ritchey, and Tormo centers on AL-N, an android intern with the ship Pie-in-the-Sky and the Cosmic Pizza crew. Their mission? To deliver affordable, tasty pizza to sentient beings across the galaxy. Narrator AL-N journeys with delivery driver Meg (an anthropomorphic sloth), chef Suzie (a green alien who wears a mechanical suit), and cashier Mohs (a sentient rock) from planet to planet serving pizza, dodging danger (including from the pizza mogul Papa Roni), and gathering the highest-quality ingredients available. Each story is self-contained, making the book easy to read in pieces. The work may benefit from being read out loud, to help readers catch all the pizza puns throughout. The bright art is a perfect match for the slapstick, silly adventures, and the panel layouts deftly convey motion and scene changes. The characters display positive traits such as hard work, open-mindedness, and teamwork.