The Glorkian Warrior Delivers a Pizza

January 6, 2014
Johnny Boo creator Kochalka introduces a three-eyed, three-toothed, pink alien who sets a new intergalactic bar for nincompoopery. In the course of 20 brief chapters, the Glorkian Warrior attempts to deliver a pizza—never mind that the phone call ordering it was a wrong number (luckily, he has a leftover peanut butter and clam pizza in the fridge). The plot is driven forward by the Glorkian Warrior’s banter with his yellow Super Backpack—“Well, here we go, I guess,” says the unenthusiastic backpack as they set out. “Our stupid destiny awaits!”—and their encounters with potential foes, who often aren’t what they seem. Kochalka sets the action against swirling purple skies and a rocky multicolor landscape, and his clean, emphatic cartooning gives every pratfall, explosion, and head-butt maximum impact. Eventually, the story meanders back to where it started, leading Super Backpack to wonder, “Does that mean this whole adventure was for nothing?” From a plot perspective, yes, but fans of Kochalka’s brand of absurdity (or who want to watch the Glorkian Warrior punch himself in the face a lot) will still have reason to tune in. Ages 5–9. (Mar.)■

March 1, 2014

Gr 1-4-The Glorkian Warrior, a three-eyed, amiable alien dunce with an overdeveloped sense of drama, and Super Backpack, his sentient portable weapon system with a yen for action, receive a mysterious call to deliver a pizza. "You say wrong number... I say... DESTINY!" the Warrior declares, and the book continues in this vein of tongue-in-cheek lunacy. The mild adversarial relationship between the Warrior and his backpack mimics the sibling dynamic found in Kochalka's other books-most obviously in the "Johnny Boo" series (Top Shelf, 2008)-and provides much of the humor and the engine with which most readers will find a recognizable hook amid the flights of fancy. The book is leisurely paced, featuring large panels with lots of breathing room padding out most of the surprising length, with zany miscommunication and humorous confusion slowing down the action. Kochalka uses this ambling storytelling style to have a gag with each turn of the page, thus ensuring engagement with readers. While the character renderings are rather staid, the expressiveness of their eyes and mouths is effectively dynamic, and the eight-bit, retro-aesthetic color palette helps establish the extraterrestrial bona fides of the setting. Quirky, funny, lighthearted, and interestingly subversive.-Benjamin Russell, Belmont High School, NH

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2014
Grades K-3 The Glorkian Warrior and his super backpack are sitting around one day when they receive a phone call . . . of destiny! Actually, the caller is just trying to order a pepperoni pizza. But the Glorkian Warrior is determined to go on an adventure, so he and his talking backpack take the leftover peanut-butter-and-clam pizza from their fridge to deliver to the caller. On their way, they crash their car, befriend a weepy fellow Glorkian, blow up a spaceship, adopt a newly hatched alien baby, and confront a magical computer before they return home starving and decide to order a pepperoni pizza. Kochalka (Dragon Puncher, 2010) fills his large panels with bright candy colors and doodlelike characters who bounce through a star-spangled space backdrop with explosive, kicking action. Like the best kind of make-believe battle, the Glorkian's quest escalates to an amusingly absurd level, and Kochalka wraps it up in a surreal loop back to the beginning. Stuffed with playful fun and awesome sound effects, this feisty intergalactic journey delivers a good-natured sucker punch of glee.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)