My Kids Are Obsessed With This Book Series By A Minnesota-Based Author!

A couple of weeks ago my kids and I finished reading the entire Dog Man series. While we loved the books, and the movie, we were kind of bummed out because we didn't know what we were going to read next!

We took a trip to the Great River Regional Library in St. Cloud and began digging through the shelves full of graphic novels searching for our next series. Eventually we came across some Minecraft books that were a little bit above his age level and a few Godzilla books that were -way- above his grade level before we found our next, favorite series: Pizza and Taco!

The series focuses on two best friends named (you guessed it) Taco and Pizza. They are literally photos of a slice of pizza and a beef taco with eyes and mouths drawn on with hilarious expressions. My two year old loves to try to copy their faces when we read the books.

Of course, there are side characters like Hamburger and Hot dog, cool kid B.L.T, the Chicken Tender twins and the always-crabby Cheeseburger.

Pizza and Taco's adventures range from trips to their favorite water park, becoming pro wrestlers, starting a band and forming the 'Coolest Club Ever.' In total there are nine Pizza and Taco books, with a tenth book titled "Pizza and Taco: Draw Your Own Comic" set to be released in May of 2025.

My kids love the books because the illustrations are fun and they are fairly easy for my first grader to read. He usually voices Taco, I voice Pizza and we feed our two year old the 'side characters' lines to "read."

The author of these graphic novels is Stephen Shaksan, who went to college in Rhode Island before beginning a 20 year career as an early childhood educator and summer art teacher. He currently lives in Minneapolis with his wife, Trista Speed Shaskan, who is also an author.