The dynamic between the titular brothers in Lian Cho’s hilarious picture book, The Pizza Brothers, will feel familiar to anyone who’s ever been that person during group projects—the one who quietly does all the work behind the scenes while their teammates take the lion’s share of the credit. In this family, that role is filled by Paolo, who “picked up the cheese . . . made the sauce . . . tended to the garden . . . did the cleaning,” while his brothers focused on their specialties: “Alejandro was in charge of the toppings. Antonio kneaded the dough.”
When business at the brothers’ pizza shop becomes lackluster, the trio hatch a plan to bake the world’s biggest pizza, but Antonio and Alejandro are so fixated on their own starring roles that they fail to take Paolo—or their potential customers—into account. This is a satisfying tale of comeuppance, and a silly one, too, where the moral of the story is so skillfully integrated with the plot that it goes down as easy as a perfectly baked slice.
Cho’s brightly hued illustrations provide both humor and drama (in a particularly striking scene, Antonio gleefully rips off his shirt to show off his hairy chest; in another, a dismayed Paolo surveys his lengthy to-do list compared with his brothers’ short ones) as well as fun details to discover. Readers will especially enjoy searching every spread for a little white mouse, who sports a full range of emotional expressions. There are also plenty of nods to the brothers’ Filipino heritage—the wall of the pizza shop sports a framed photo of their lola as well as a Philippine flag, and Alejandro’s featured pizza toppings include Filipino classics like bistek and lechon. Readers hungry for a bighearted, off-the-wall tale of food and family will be begging for seconds or thirds of The Pizza Brothers.