Title: Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs

Author: Judi Barrett and drawn by Ron Barrett

Genre: Fantasy

Summary: A sweet and tasty story told by a grandfather to his two grandchildren, becomes quite the savory bedtime story. He talks about a town called “Chewandswallow”, where the weather wasn’t normal, it came three times a day at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The story continues to talk about how the town is run and how the people live. Unfortunately, it takes a turn for the smorgasbord. The food was very inconsistent and was getting larger and larger. It got so bad for that the citizens had to leave Chewandswallow forever. They made boats out of all the extra, dry, large food and sailed away and never looked back.

Review: this is one of the best and most iconic children’s book, in my opinion. Children love stories with food, especially messy food, so this book is a perfect snack time or night time story. There was even a hit movie series, with the same name, based off this book. Although it is not exactly the same as the book (what movie is nowadays?) it still provides children for a basis of how crazy they can allow their imagination to get. There doesn’t seem to be a real moral to the story being that it is fantasy; but when the weather gets tough, the tough get going.

Content Area Connection:

• Science: This is a fun way to teach students about the different types of weather anomalies: rain, fog, hurricanes, and so on. Although the weather events that happen in the book are not real, they are based on real weather conditions that happen in our world.
• Health: This would also be a great book to segway into what foods are good for growing children and which ones are fine to eat in moderation. Teaching the students healthy eating habits will be better for their overall health as they get older.