Name: Cloudy with a chance of meatballs
ISBN: 9780590303842

Judi Barrett

Life is delicious in the town of Chewandswallow, where it rains soup and juice, snows mashed potatoes, and blows storms of hamburgers--until the weather takes a turn for the worse.

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs

Sarah Sammis

Back in January I wrote a review of the film version of Cloud with a Chance of Meatballs and I promised a longer review of the book by Judi Barrett. I apologize for the delay. I really don't know where the time as gone!

The book has a framing story that begins with a mishap during breakfast. The grandfather is inspired and tells the children about a place called Chewandswallow where the weather brings food three times a day. Except near the end of the town's existence, the food gets too big and starts to be a threat to the well-being of the townspeople.

As the story is presented as a tall tale, there's no need to explain the mechanics behind the food weather or the sudden increase in the foods' size. Without that framing story I would have found the book annoying.

Although the illustration style of the book is very clearly a product of the late 1970s, the film manages to recreate many of the iconic scenes (though with different circumstances behind them). I liked seeing that connection between book and film even though they are otherwise so very different.