Plot Summary

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs was written by Judi Barrett and Illustrated by Ron Barrett. It is a fantasy picture book. This book would be considered fantasy because there are many fantastical elements involved, such as weather made out of food. 

The book tells the story that a Grandfather tells a young girl (whose name is never mentioned) and her brother Henry before going to bed one night. His story is about the town of Chewandswallow, a small town with extremely unusual weather patterns. In Chewandswallow people never buy groceries or go out to eat. Instead, all of their meals are provided for them through the weather! When it rains, it rains soup or soda. Clouds bring pancake and eggs, and storms blow in hotdogs and hamburgers. 

The people of Chewandswallow are happy and content with their situation, until the weather takes a turn for the worse. One day it only snowed cheese, which made the town smell. One day there was a continuous cloud of pea soup fog, nobody could see where they were going and their other meals got lost amongst the heavy fog. Another day a storm of salt and pepper blew in, making everyone sneeze. 

Sooner or later the conditions get so bad that the Sanitation Department can not keep up with the weather. The town is a mess and the people decide they need to leave. They build boats out of humongous stale peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and take off. They arrive in a small town on the coast and settle there. They are happy to be out of the mess, but have to adjust to their new lifestyle of buying and preparing their own food. 

Textual Elements

Plot: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is about a Grandfather telling a story to his grandchildren about the town of Chewandswallow, where all the food people need falls from the sky. Juice, hamburgers, pie, and all sorts of other food "rain" or "storm in" when it is time for a meal. One day, food falls uncontrollably and continues for days. The town is destroyed and the people of Chewandswallow decide to leave to find a better place to live.

Setting: The setting mainly takes place in the town of Chewandswallow, an imaginary town part of Grandpa's bedtime story. The children's home is also mentioned and shown through the illustrations.

Characters: The three main characters of the story are a young girl (whose name is never mentioned), her brother Henry and their Grandpa. While the book's illustrations show some of the people in Chewandswallow, they are never identified. 

Point of view: The story told is from the young girls point of view. Although Grandpa is telling the story most of the time, the reader hears from her voice. For example, on the fourth page of the book she says "That night, touched off by the pancake incident at breakfast, Grandpa told us the best tall-tale bedtime story he'd ever told."

Theme: The theme of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is weather and human environment interaction. While the town of Chewandswallow's weather is nothing like normal weather patterns, it shows (both visually and verbally) the reader how the people of Chewandswallow interact with their odd weather patterns and environment.

Artistic Elements 

The illustrations in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs are comic-style, drawn with black ink and pencil. The book begins in black and white, and once Grandpa starts to tell his story, the illustrations are colored in with watercolor. Illustrator Ron Barrett does a great job of utilizing the entire page with illustrations. Each page is surrounded by a white border, and the text box positioning changes from page to page. There are some full bleed illustrations, but the majority are single page. Some pages show more than one illustration or more than one text box, to show a variety of ideas and/or events. While the illustrations are very animated and comic-like, they are also detail oriented and extremely colorful. 

Analysis and Critique

Overall, I think the story of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is cute and creative, but lacks an important theme and message. It would be a great story for young children, because it requires a vivid imagination. At the same time, the story is told purely for entertainment, the reader does not walk away with a learned message and/or moral. Perhaps if the author tried to incorporate more ideas about "taking things for granted" (such as the people of Chewandswallow may do) the story would have more of a symbolic meaning. 

Recently this book was made into an animated 3D movie. I can see why movie producers and marketers would choose to develop the story into a movie since it is so creative and visual. While I have not seen the movie, I have read a few reviews that share a variety of thoughts on the movie. One review stated it was a very funny movie, good for the whole family. Another said that the idea of "nutritional values" and "health-consciousness" were pushed too much for a children's movie. These reviews make me think that the movie must be much different from the book because while the book is fun and entertaining, it is not humorous nor does it push healthy eating habits. 

Citation

Barrett, Judy. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Illus. Ron Barrett. New York: Alladin Paperbacks, 1978.