I thought I was picking up a book. I was actually picking up a Wonderbook.
Perhaps I should explain.
I picked up Adam Rubin’s 2024 picture book Secret Pizza Party because I, like everyone else, had loved Rubin’s earlier book Dragons Love Tacos. (If you haven’t read it, go do so now.) However, I just grabbed it off the shelf, and didn’t realize it was a Wonderbook, which is a read along book book. The traditional picture book is here, but also includes a recording of author Adam Rubin reading the text. Wonderbooks come from Playaway Products, and this company provides audio-enabled versions of a wide range of texts, for a range of audiences. The picture books have a standardized format. Inside the front cover, at the lower left, readers find a set of buttons and, just above, instructions on how to use them. Some might be self-evident. The aqua power button has the same little power button icon found on many computers. The larger orange play button has the arrow that’s common to a lot of play buttons, and so on. A chime tells readers when the audio for the page is done, and they can flip to the next page. It is clear that once a kid has been exposed to one Wonderbook, they’ll be able to play them themselves, maybe even by feel/in the dark.
The story here is simple. The raccoon wants pizza. He yearns for pizza, but people dismiss him and his pizza needs. The narrator gushes about the wonders of pizza, then suggests a secret pizza party for raccoon. This leads to some gushing about how making things secret always makes them cooler, a disguised raccoon sneaking a pizza, then a chase scene with robots swinging brooms at the raccoon. Don’t ask why. The raccoon makes it home with his secret pizza, then spies a much larger secret pizza party next door, and sneaks in. He’s happy there…until he steals dozens of slices, and then the entire pizza party is chasing him with brooms.
Daniel Salmieri’s illustrations are fun and engaging. (For example, the title Secret Pizza Party is spelled out on the front cover with bent–and perhaps bitten–pieces of pizza.) The audio is pleasant–it is always fun to hear the author read his own work–but at times a little confusing, like when the author adds sound effects that could have been written into the book but aren’t. (If someone really is reading along, I can imagine them looking for these words.) The background music wasn’t bad, but didn’t always seem to fit the story.
Final conclusions? Definitely read Secret Pizza Party. Definitely host a secret pizza party for kids. And maybe checkout the Wonderbook version, to hear the author read his work.
