THE WOMPANANNY WITCHES MAKE ONE MEAN PIZZA

Two recluse witch chefs with a passion for pizza come out from behind their pizza oven…and survive the wild neighborhood kids.

Everyone knows that kids and witches go together “like ketchup on your cannoli!” So when three human children come ringing the witches’ doorbell, the witches are so distressed they must vent their feelings by whipping up a tasty pizza. But all their negative feelings go into that pizza, and it escapes them, unleashing its meanness as it rolls through the city and growing bigger with every rotation. Luckily, it leaves a trail of pepperoni, sauce, and cheese all over Brooklyn; hungry children taste the pizza’s trail and decide they must have more, cleverly chasing and catching the errant pie in Prospect Park. The witches are shocked to see that the kids they formerly thought were just wild are still wild…for their pizza! “Children and witches are a perfect pair!” The colophon depicts “2 Witches Pizza: Brooklyn’s ‘nicest’ slice,” a diverse crowd in a line halfway down the block. “One Mean Pizza Recipe” is on the back endpaper, though it calls for premade pizza dough and pizza sauce, so it’s basically a list of choices of cheeses and toppings and directions for throwing a pie together and baking it. Palmer’s ink, watercolor, and Photoshop illustrations are full of humorous details that require numerous rereads to catch them all.

Pair with a pie for one mean—er, make that nice—storytime.