Secret Pizza Party

by Adam Rubin, Daniel Salmieri (Illustrator)

Shhhh! Don't tell anyone about this mouth-watering book from the New York Times bestselling creators of Dragons Love Tacos!

How does Racoon love pizza? Oh, let him count the ways. He loves the gooey cheesy-ness, salty pepperoni-ness, sweet sweet tomato-ness, and of course the crispity crunchity crust. But someone is always chasing poor Raccoon away from his favorite food with a broom! What's a hungry raccoon to do? Plan an elaborate secret pizza party, of course! 
But shhh! It’s a secret! In fact, you should probably just forget I told you. Nope, no secret pizza party happening here.You didn’t already tell all your friends, did you? Uh oh . . .

Fans of Jon Klassen and Mo Willems's humor will gobble up this quirky ode to the lengths we will go to for our heart's desire.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Food, Animals, Humor, Storytime, Fiction

40 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2013

About the author

Adam Rubin is the #1 New York Times best-selling author of ten critically-acclaimed picture books, including the Those Darn Squirrels trilogy, Dragons Love Tacos, Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel, Secret Pizza Party, Robo-Sauce and El Chupacabras (winner of the 2020 Texas Blue Bonnet award). In between writing projects, he designs and collects optical illusions, puzzles and games. His favorite color is blue, his favorite food is fried chicken, and his favorite animal is the otter. Adam currently lives in Brooklyn.

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmm. I had high hopes for this one just based on the artwork.

It's funny, but it also made me raise an eyebrow once or twice.

Raccoon loves pizza so much that he rolls around in it. He also steals from the pizza shop--and not in a sneaky, animal-like way, but by dressing in a trench coat and telling the guy he left his wallet in the car.

?!?

Also, there's the sentence: "when we make something secret, we make it special". That just makes me think of pedophiles, so the book is pretty much ruined for me.

[Be happy!!! Eat Bread!!! · Rating 5 out of 5]

politely saying that you could not eat another thing, then ordering take out on the sly... who to avoid starvation without hurting the feelings of the resident wannabe chef...

[Maegen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm sorry, but in my house we will not be reading this. Stealing is being encouraged. And there's a weird vibe. Also.... Can we not encourage kids to do sneaky things and tell them making things secret makes it better?
"Secrets secrets are no fun. Secrets secrets hurt someone" -Elizabeth

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I want to like this book, but it's so weird, the narrative makes zero sense, and I have a problem with the way the author encourages secrets

[Erth · Rating 5 out of 5]

How does Racoon love pizza? Oh, let him count the ways. He loves the gooey cheesy-ness, salty pepperoni-ness, sweet sweet tomato-ness, and of course the crispity crunchity crust. But someone is always chasing poor Raccoon away from his favorite food with a broom! What's a hungry raccoon to do? Plan an elaborate secret pizza party, of course!
But shhh! It’s a secret! In fact, you should probably just forget I told you. Nope, no secret pizza party happening here.You didn’t already tell all your friends, did you? Uh oh . . .

[Erin Stanion · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, as I heard so many good things about it. However, the hair raised on my neck when I read the line "when you make something secret, you make it special." What kind of person writes this with a child demographic in mind? The encouraging of secret-keeping and stealing was a huge turn-off; my child did not like it at all.

[Angela · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a sick attempt at grooming children!

[Emma Laing · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is clearly purposefully grooming children for sexual abuse.

[Shannon]

A raccoon who loves pizza. I felt this one in my soul.

[Donalyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will admit that when I read Dragons Love Tacos, Rubin and Salmieri's debut, I thought is was too absurd and weird. For a children's book about dragons and tacos, this is saying something.

Recognizing that the book wasn't written for me, I shared it with some kids.

My granddaughter, my students--every kid I shared it with loved Dragons Love Tacos. Lesson learned.

I am reserving complete judgment on Secret Pizza Party until I share it with my students tomorrow. I predict similar results.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Sorry, pizza smell gives me the happy screams."

[Sonia Smith]

I would never read this book to little children!! There are secrets that harm children and this book fails to address it. It has no educational purpose. Dumb, meaningless book that is ok for adults to get excited about secret handshakes but dangerous for kids to recognise that fun is no fun when an adult asks you to keep a secret. Obviously, this book is full of pedophilic, criminal ways of grooming and luring children. I wonder who paid the author to write this book? If not, then he serves his own purpose and that's nothing good for children

[Hanna Yost · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to like this, but was not a fan of encouraging secret keeping and making it sound like an okay (and even cool) thing to do. Also, the encouragement of stealing made me raise my brow. I thought the people chasing the raccoon was kind of scary.

Mehhh. Would probably not recommend when it's on the shelf next to my huge love, Dragons Love Tacos.

[Megan · Rating 1 out of 5]

THIS IS A PEDOPHILE GROOMING BOOK! Pay attention parents, teachers, and librarians! Look it up for yourself on the FBI’s website: “Pizza” is a code word for child (usually “Little girl”). This book is disgusting.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Also like their work on tacos.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome!

[Mum Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute story. Enjoyed reading it to my grandson - and my daughters, one of whom is his Momma, who were both in the room too.

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Age: Preschool-2nd grade
Food: Pizza!
Animals: Raccoon

Narrator wants to help out poor Raccoon and his pizza obsession. He decides to throw a secret pizza party in his honor. Now, I hope children will like the silliness of this book, because I sure did. Not only is the dialogue hilarious (well, monologue since raccoons don't talk, silly) but the illustrations are equally as hilarious. That's double the guffaws! When raccoon runs back to his house with stolen pizza in hand with raccoon-sniffing broom-bots on his tail, there are several pizza-related posters on the wall, including one that has a woman with pizza slices for hands and feet. And a pizza slice with a goatee. And a pizza lamp. You have to see it.

I actually loled when this happened: "SECRET PIZZA PARTY! Oops, I said that kind of loud. Sorry, pizza smell gives me the happy screams."

[Magpie67 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love pizza and I got hungry reading this book.

"Ah, pizza... So beautiful, you could hang it on the wall of a museum. So convenient, you could eat it in the bathtub."

"Of course, the best part about pizza is the gooey cheesy-ness, salty pepperoni-ness, sweet, sweet tomato-ness, and crispity, curnchity crust. Yum!"

Let's have a secret party... raccoon figures out a way to get his own box but soon discovers there is a secret party of pizza and he is in pizza heaven. Until he is discovered and the chase is on. LOL! I want to read their other title Dragons Love Tacos.

[Margaux · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't even begin to describe how much I love this book. It's so sweet and adorable. The little raccoon has his own individual personality. Rubin does a really good job of making his omniscient narrator sympathize with Raccoon while describing to the audience (sometimes directly) how much Raccoon loves ... PIZZA. I just got this book this week and I already have parts of it memorized. It's just so fun and whimsical.

[Cassandra · Rating 1 out of 5]

We need to boycott scholastic to absolutely pull this book off shelves. It’s honestly sickening that this is for little kids.

Even if you don’t believe in pizza gate and can see the similarities, there’s other red flags.

The biggest is teaching kids to keep secrets. Dangerous and grooming behavior. 🤢

[Haifa Mohammed]

This book has unusual and disturbing references to grooming children for abuse and trafficking. Seriously, don’t buy this book ever. Teaching children that secrets are good and better is NOT OKAY.

[Ishanie]

Creepy. I’m not a huge conspiracy theorist but this one surely made me raise an eyebrow.

[Tatiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, dragons and tacos. Now? Raccoons and pizza. I love pizza as much as the next girl, so I can understand why the scavenger star of Secret Pizza Party goes to amazing lengths to swindle as much delicious pie as possible. I know for a fact young kiddos adore these stories. Like, they can’t get enough. It’s easy to see why when the narrative and illustrations are so irreverent. It’s not as effective on me, but whatever. Also, is it just me or do the people resemble the animation from Bob’s Burgers?

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

A raccoon loving pizza is the cutest!

[Katie Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is popular with Preschool and Up in the School Library!

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poor raccoon. He just wants pizza and gets brooms. Well, he eventually does get some pizza.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fun story to tell!

[Villain E · Rating 3 out of 5]

A raccoon wants to have pizza, but everybody keeps chasing it away. Somehow, the solution is to have a secret pizza party?