Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

by Judi Barrett
Illustration by Ron Barrett

The tiny town of Chewandswallow was very much like any other tiny town except for its weather which came three times a day, at breakfast lunch and dinner.

But it never rained rain and it never snowed snow and it never blew just wind. It rained things like soup and juice. It snowed things like mashed potatoes. And sometimes the wind blew in storms of hamburgers.

Life for the townspeople was delicious until the weather took a turn for the worse. The food got larger and larger and so did the portions. Chewandswallow was plagued by damaging floods and storms of huge food. The town was a mess and people were afraid. Something had to be done, and in a hurry.

Ron Barrett's Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is a great literary snack to share with your child any time. The story begins in a realistic setting of a family sharing breakfast and the child narrator later going to bed, but when Grandpa tells his bedtime story about the mythical town of Chewandswallow, your little one's imagination will soar. The pictures are compelling and portrayed in graphic novel style, ranging from panels to full page sized pictures, and shaded with muted colors of black, red, yellow, and peach. The story has a clear plot, fully fleshed out with words, to help keep your child enraptured. They can also share in the humor, from the pancake landing on Henry's face to the imaginary town's name, Chewandswallow.

Aside from the wonderful story itself, this book is a great bonding opportunity for you and your child. Your child will enjoy following along with the longer sentences and seeing how the story unfolds in the compelling pictures. They may get caught up in the pictures and fall quiet while imagining the fun of collecting soup in an upside-down umbrella to have for lunch, or they may interrupt several times to ask how this is possible or if it is real. They will learn new words and foods like "Sanitation" and "Gorganzola", perhaps even opening their mind to trying some new foods. You can add to the fun by thinking of your own weather-related foods to add to the story; how about marshmallow snow or gumball hail?

The first time I read this book to my five-year-old friend, Nick, he was full of questions. He wanted to know where Chewandswallow was and when we could visit. I explained that I didn't know how to get there, or what it would look like these days considering the bad turn the weather took in the book. I told him that no one knows where Chewandswallow really is, or if it's real. Nick says he will look for it when he's older.

--Audra