Welcome to Cay Rico!

Hi! I’m Dave*, and I’m so glad you found this place.

Somewhere out in the warm blue Caribbean sea, there’s an island called Cay Rico. It has sandy beaches, a busy market, a colorful old bus that plays music too loud, and a tiny pizza place called Tony’s that’s about to be in big trouble.

That’s where you’ll meet Nico and Tazz.

Nico is smart, a little awkward, and really good at noticing things other people miss. Tazz is brave, stubborn, and never met a bad idea she wouldn’t try at least once. Together, they’re about to do something nobody expects two kids to pull off: save a pizza place from disappearing forever.

This website is home to their story — 🍕The Pizza Kids🍕 — , along with character pix, writing activities, art projects, and a few surprises I’ll be adding along the way.

Grab a slice (pepperoni, obviously) and look around. The island’s waiting for you.

— Dave*

*My name on the book is David, but once you’re a Pizza Kid, you can call me Dave.

Learning to Draw an Island (Badly, at First)

I’ll be honest with you: I am currently losing a fight with an iPad.

I’m teaching myself Procreate so I can hand-draw a map of Cay Rico — the real, full island, coastline and all, the kind of map you’d find folded into the back of an adventure book. I’ve watched enough YouTube tutorials at this point that the algorithm thinks I am a digital illustrator. I am not. Yet.

Here’s the thing about drawing a place that only exists in your head: you have to decide things you never had to decide when you were just writing about it. Where exactly is the lighthouse? How far is the ravine from town? Is the fort ruin on the windward side or the leeward side, and does that even matter for the story — and it turns out, yes, it kind of does.

So for now, it’s me, a stylus, a lot of undo taps, and a slowly emerging coastline. I’ll share the map here the moment it stops looking like a potato.

Thanks for following along with the messy middle of making this book — the parts that don’t usually make it onto the “about the book” page.

Dear Cay Rico Chronicle🗞️…

We get letters. Oh, do we get letters. Do you have one for us?

Dear Editor, I would like to formally complain that the new pizza smell coming from downtown is making it impossible to focus on my afternoon nap. I nap professionally. This is a workplace hazard. — A Concerned Iguana (name withheld, but we all know who this is)

Dear Editor, Someone drew a very good pizza in the sand near the fishing dock and then the tide took it before I could show my grandmother. Please look into building a permanent sand pizza. Thank you for your service. — A Hopeful Reader, Age 9

Dear Editor, I just want to say the market smelled like flowers and fresh bread this week and it made my whole day better. More of that, please. — Someone Who Just Needed to Say It

Got a letter for the Chronicle? Real or invented, silly or sincere — we’ll take it.

“This Is Radio KOOL FM”

📻 Coming to You Live from Somewhere on 🌴Cay Rico

Crackle… crackle…

Good afternoon, good evening, good whenever-you’re-listening, Cay Rico! This is your one and only station, broadcasting from a shack with a very determined antenna and a goat named Melon who keeps chewing through the wire.

Today’s forecast: sunny, with a chance of pizza smell drifting up from the pier around noon. If you’re near Tony’s, you already know what I’m talking about.

Coming up after this song — a public service announcement from the harbor: if your boat is named Lucky Manatee, please move it, you are blocking three other boats and nobody thinks it’s as funny as you do.

Stay tuned, stay cool, and if you see Melon, please do not feed her anything with wires in it.

— This has been a message from Radio Cay Rico. Reception may vary depending on wind, mood, and whether Melon is nearby.