Module 2: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Book Summary:

In this book, a young
boy’s grandfather tells him the story of a land where food fell from the sky.
Instead of rain and snow, it would rain orange juice and toast. People got all
of their meals outside from the sky. Eventually, though, the weather turned bad.
It rained pancakes that covered whole buildings, or rained so much food that
there was no way to get rid of it all. Soon there was no real way for people to
continue there, so they made rafts out of bread and sailed to another town,
where it rained and snowed like normal, and they had to cook all their own
meals.

My Impressions:

This book was a really interesting book. The illustrations were fantastic and suited
the story very well. The story was fun and imaginative. It was fun to think
about food falling from the sky, and the author made it look like it would be a
wonderful place to live (at least at first). Even the image of the giant
pancake covering the school was one that children could really appreciate. I
think this story is one that is especially appealing to children simply because
of some of the imagery.

APA Reference:

Barrett, J. (1978). Cloudy with a chance of meatballs. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Professional Review:

A flying pancake at breakfast triggers Grandpa's bedtime story set in the far-off land
of Chewanswallow, where the food comes out of the sky and ""whatever
the weather served, that was what they ate."" Most of the book
consists of nothing more than elaborations on this conceit, with running menu
information decked out in weather report terminology, but Judi Barrett's
examples are nutty enough so that kids won't tire of the gag--even though Ron
Barrett's flippy pop cartoons are too literal to enlarge it. The plot thickens
with the maple syrup, and at last the portions grow so large that the people
are being bombarded and buried by food--and so they all sail off on
peanut-butter sandwiches to a land where food is purchased at the supermarket.
A dubious improvement perhaps, but Grandpa's imaginings are very close to a
little kid's funny bone--which everyone knows is located somewhere along the
intestinal tract.

(1997) Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved from http://www.kirkusreviews.com/

Possible library uses:

This book would be a good one to use to show children an
example of a book that inspired a movie—and why they should still read the book
even if they have seen the movie. While there is a movie with this title, it is
only loosely based on the book. The book has some charm that I feel the movie
lacks; children should know that there is value in both. Many children skip
reading some books because “I’ve seen the movie already!” Perhaps this book
could open that door again for some children. The library could have a “Movie
Books” challenge, and see what happens when children compare a book to a movie
they have seen.