Lorenzo, the Pizza-Loving Lobster

by Claire Lordon

Overview

Help Lorenzo the lobster and Kalena the sea turtle make a pizza in this delicious summer picture book!

When Lorenzo the lobster is wandering on the beach and discovers a pizza, it becomes his favorite food ever! He comes back home to tell his friend Kalena the sea turtle about it, and together they try to make it. But, Lorenzo can't remember exactly what was on it. Was it made with seaweed cake, kelp paste, eelgrass, and sand dollars? Or kelp dough, squid ink, algae, and coral rings? Or maybe sponge patties, jellyfish jelly, seaweed noodles, and seashells? After a few unappetizing attempts, Kalena becomes frustrated with Lorenzo and leaves hungry and unhappy. As she walks home, she comes across something delicious . . . It must be the pizza Lorenzo was talking about! She's so hungry she could eat it all, but she brings it back for Lorenzo and her to look at together. Once they figure out how to make it, they have a pizza party for all their friends!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781499802283
Publisher:	little bee books
Publication date:	05/03/2016
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	441,114
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 9.70(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Claire Lordon is an illustrator and designer who has created digital illustrations, surface designs, and greeting cards for a number of companies. She earned her BFA in illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design, with a focus in digital illustration, educational media, and surface design.

A lifelong enthusiasm for adventure and the outdoors always beckons Claire to travel and try new things, which continually inspires her work. She loves nature and enjoys running and hiking, and she is very excited to be publishing her first picture book. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can find out more about Claire at clairelordon.com.

Editorial Reviews

04/01/2016
PreS-Gr 2—An adventurous lobster named Lorenzo finds a seagull eating something delicious from a paper plate on the beach. Unlike any other seagull in the real world, this bird invites Lorenzo to share his pizza. And Lorenzo loves it! He rushes to tell his friends about his wonderful food discovery. He and his friend Kalena the turtle want to try to make their own pizza, but they have no idea how to do it. They use ingredients that Lobster has around the kitchen, like seaweed cake, kelp paste, eelgrass, and sand dollars. After the pizza is baked, it is just not right. They keep trying other marine ingredients, but the results are disappointing. On her way home, Kalena smells a delicious real pizza being cooked at a food stand on the beach and buys one to bring back to Lorenzo. They study the real pizza carefully so they can create one successfully and have a big pizza party for their friends. Colorful cartoon illustrations brighten the text, adding humorous details to the words. The illustrations do take some liberties for graphic appeal: lobsters are only red after they have been cooked! The silly, yucky ingredients Lorenzo and Kalena use to make their first pizza will delight readers. The making of the first pizza is really the heart of the story, and everything else just supports that idea. VERDICT Readers will enjoy this silly pizza story and will perhaps want to design their own creations for other animals (a pizza for a rabbit or an elephant, etc.). A tasty addition.—Mary Hazelton, formerly at Warren & Waldoboro Elementary Schools, ME

School Library Journal

2016-03-02
Will involving kids in the cooking process help them try new foods? Lordon uses pizza-making to entice in this venture into new tastes. After falling in love with a single slice of pizza, a lobster named Lorenzo tries his hand at re-creating the tasty treat. Unfortunately, Lorenzo cannot remember what was on the pizza, leading to repeated failures trying to recapture the treasured slice for his turtle friend Kalena. The absurd litany of unpalatable toppings includes sponge patties, jellyfish jelly, squid ink, and algae. Unsurprisingly, none of the combinations they try taste any good at all. The illustrations balance characters and scenery with speech bubbles, and they are engaging enough, although the main characters are a bit static, with cut-and-paste eyes and simple body shapes. When Kalena finds a real pizza pie, the duo surprisingly goes straight from zero to hero. "Let's make a pizza with the correct ingredients. It's so tasty I want more!" exclaims Lorenzo. The very next page depicts a backyard full of pizza-eating friends. Readers are never shown the process that results in the first successful pie, which leaves the author's intent unclear: to promote pizza production? That seafood is bad? Instead, the message that pizza tastes better when shared with a friend is what remains. Look for stronger food and friendship books than this one. (Picture book. 3-7)

Kirkus Reviews