Rocky Bobocky, the Pizza Man - Hardcover

Rocky is an exuberant pizzeria proprietor whose generosity keeps his business teetering on the brink of financial disaster. Betty is a newly unemployed accountant and mother of six pizza-eaters who lives across the street. She's good with numbers, he's good with pizza-it's a business match made in heaven. And so it proves in this jaunty picture book. Ellison spins her tale with gusto and heart, if not fine prose ("Rocky wasn't worth doodley as a businessman"), and the sprightly mood is played up through Bolling's ebullient, slightly offbeat watercolors. Rocky, with his pink cherub cheeks, unruly fringe of gray hair and plaid socks, seems the perfect partner for the flame-haired Betty, whose penchant for loud dresses and rose-colored (literally) glasses lights up the pages. The story may have no more staying power than one of Rocky's pies, but it's an enjoyable outing, with ample visual punch. Ages 5-9.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Some appetizing ingredients have been whipped up into a familiar plot that starts out hot and cools in the delivery. The characters are fresh enough: Rocky, a fun-loving, singing pizza- maker, is a terrible businessman with no eye for the bottom line; Betty, the math-whiz mother across the street, wears herself out working for an accountant and has no time to cook for her six kids. Betty's kids order pizza every day until she gets laid off; the inevitable solution takes ten pages to put into place. Bolling, in a style that recalls some of Julie Vivas's work, injects pizzazz into every scene, often with a profusion of pink pomodoro. (Picture book. 5-9) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.