Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs & Pickles to Pittsburgh

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs written by Judi Barrett, drawn by Ron Barrett

Grab your plates! In the land of Chewandswallow, meals – rather than rain or snow – fall from the sky. But something goes awry: the food falling from the sky gets larger and larger, causing the residents to make an escape before being squashed by giant pancakes or rolls. Will they cope with the natural disaster or be forced to make a run for it?

Pickles To Pittsburgh written and colored by Judi Barrett, drawn by Ron Barrett

Check back in with Kate and Henry as they eagerly await Grandpa’s return from an unusual vacation. Kate dreams about a postcard Grandpa has sent, and the story begins.

Kate and Henry pilot a plane, landing on a runway of crisp bacon strips next to a field of giant broccoli stalks and oversized hamburgers.  Times have changed in Chewandswallow, and readers will love finding out how storms of gigantic food threatened normal life until eventually the Falling Food Company was created, sending food to hungry people around the world.

My thoughts:

We read both of these over the weekend. At our house, at least, you can’t read one without reading the other. They really should be in every kid’s personal library. Amber still get a kick out of them even though we’ve read them a million times. I think that the idea of giant food, especially things like ice cream, cake and broccoli (don’t ask), appeals to her and encourages her to imagine “what if.”  I think now that she’s a little older she catches more in the illustrations, too. They’re probably best for kids 4-8, but like I said, she still enjoys them.

The movie, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, comes out in September. We saw a trailer for it and it looks cute, but totally different from the story.