The Pursuit of the Pesky Pizza Pirate draws in young readers with doodles

The Pursuit of the Pesky Pizza Pirate is a book that if for the kids that like to doodle. The daydreaming kids that draw dancing robots, enjoy snow globes and yearn to be stuck on a pirate ship eating pizza. At some point in time that description applies to most 9 year old kids. If that’s you, or that sounds like your child then you’ll want to explore this book, but be warned, it’s best done with a pencil and a reader who’s quick at the draw.

Draw in a book? That’s just silly or dangerous, depending on what book they’re going to doodle in. In this case, it’s silly. It’s good silly fun that kids who like Captain Underpants and to an extent, Wimpy Kid will relate to and enjoy. The Pesky Pizza Pirate has vocabulary that’s slightly below the Wimpy Kid books with its presentation being similar to the artwork in them.

The book’s art is more similar to Captain Underpants, but doesn’t have the potty humor of that book. As a result, The Pursuit of the Pesky Pizza Pirate is more palatable for either girls or boys-as long as they like to doodle. If your child is not a doodler, you’ll want to stick with a book that focuses more on the active reading.

The goal of Pesky Pizza Pirate is for kids to tinker, doodle or even color in various aspects of the book. Carl the Duck is on a mission to find frozen pizza, but no place in town has any and he’s getting worried. What if someone is taking all of the frozen pizza? Thus begins his quest to find the frozen pizza and get it back home so that he can eat. Along the way we meet a pirate, see some crazy inventions, sea monsters a Cyclops and more.

On about every third page readers are asked to draw something that will assist Carl on his quest. It could be an umbrella, a ship, something stinky or to fill in the contents of a snow globe. Our 7 year old, first grade student was able to read and understand most of The Pursuit of the Pesky Pizza Pirate. He also laughed hysterically on some pages. Immediately after finishing it he realized that this is the second book in the Doodle Adventures series and asked if we could get the first book.

While he could read the book-and he really enjoyed it, Pesky Pizza Pirate will be best enjoyed by kids who are 9 and up. Third graders and up will be able to doodle better and be more willing to draw crazy things. Call it the added year of life experiences or the maturation of second graders, but they and kids older than them will really be able to dig into the abject silliness in this fun story that really draws children in.