The Pizza Shape Book   
Adam Thompson  Ill. Erica Harrison 

The Pizza Shape Book
Mog and Morris series
Adam Thompson
Ill. Erica Harrison
Messy Press (2026)
Hardback, 32 pages
AUS $24  NZ $28
ISBN 978-1-0670985-2-0 

Messy Press caught public attention in 2026 when it won the Bologna Children’s Book Fair award as Oceania’s ‘Best Children’s Publisher of the Year.’ With its use of cheerful storytelling, eye-catching illustrations and an amusing introduction to basic concepts, The Pizza Shape Book is a good example of why they won the award.

 More specifically, the Pizza Shape Book uses Mog (a cat) and Morris (a dog), as well as a touch of humour, to introduce the subject of shapes. The result is an amusing picture book, which also provides a stealthy introduction to basic shapes.

Mog has been sitting in her armchair, musing on shapes. ‘The world is full of shapes,’ she declares, ‘Big ones. Small ones. Funny ones.’ In the steam from Mog’s cocoa, visions of bananas, socks, hungry caterpillars, doughnuts and mushrooms whirl. All shapes.  (Hungry caterpillars, it turns out, are a series of overlapping circles.)

Morris has a dogged determination to find out what she’s talking about.   

‘But what is a shape, Mog?’

‘Let me explain, Morris,’ says didactic Mog.

 She introduces Morris to a world of shapes, pointing out squares, triangles, circles and rectangles. Everything in their house has a shape. ‘Bricks are rectangles,’ catsplains Mog, ‘A roof is a triangle. Triangles. They have three sides. This lamp is a triangle.’

‘Like your ears, Mog!’ says Morris.

 Those reading this book aloud will have to produce sound effects as they read Morris’s realisation of what the full moon’s shape is: ‘The moon is a big circle. Like a … ding dong … pizza!’

The ding dong is being made by a delivery-dog. A pizza delivery-dog.  

Before long, Morris has realised that a pizza box is a square with a circle inside, ‘Circles smell good.’

As they eat, Mog and Morris find that pizzas can also display the features of a semicircle and a triangle.

‘One slice is a triangle.’

Morris, of course, has trouble identifying the shape of the pizza topping

‘A ham shape?’

Mog puts him right, ‘It has four sides. Two short and two long. It’s a rectangle.’

‘Shapes taste delicious.’

With Adam Thompson’s lively, witty dialogue, and Erica Harrison’s charmingly stylised colour illustrations, The Pizza Shape Book is a picture book that will be read again and again. Fortunately, it is a sturdy hardback which will survive well in the busiest libraries and classrooms, as well as in the wear and tear of bedtime storytelling.

A pictorial Glossary of shapes is included.

Who can resist a book which offers ‘circles, squares, triangles and pizza?’

 

Trevor Agnew

4 Sep 2026  [Review 3860.]