During the writing of our #Booky100Keepers retrospectives I've noticed something of a disturbing trend. An awful lot of our 'keepers' are books about food, either as a direct part of the story mechanism, or as peripheral 'characters' in gloriously illustrated stories.

Do we really spend most of our time with our tummies rumbling while reading? Could be!

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" by Judi and Ron Barrett is - without doubt - something of a classic over the pond in the US but over here in the UK more people would probably know the movies rather than the book. Though we like both (well, the first movie anyway, the sequel wasn't really necessary at all but still had some fun bits) we absolutely adore the original book, and can see why Lord and Miller were also so inspired by it.

In the town of Chewandswallow they have the weirdest weather you've ever seen. There are no food shops or supermarkets in ChewandSwallow, and all the restaurants are roofless. Why? Because at any moment the weather can dump all manner of weird foodstuffs on the population.

"Everything that everyone ate came from the sky" - Such a cool idea!

In the morning they may get rained on by milk or orange juice, or end up running for cover from a flurry of breakfast pancakes.

For lunch it could be peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, while at dinner you could find big beefy burgers bouncing off your brolly.

But something's going wrong with the weather - freak storms keep happening, and soon the town is quite literally buried under tons and tons of rotting food.

Burger me, it looks grim out!

Soon the townsfolk of Chewandswallow are left with no choice but to make a break for it, building rafts out of stale bread to escape the island before it's overwhelmed.

No Flint Lockwood, no crazy inventions, just a brilliantly woven tale told by an eccentric grandfather to his grandkids, and a book that lights up your imagination every time you read it, picturing your ideal foodie weather pattern (C would love it to rain giant pizzas and probably snow ice cream!)

Original review link: 

Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs

The rather cute pre-movie scenes on our blu ray copy of the movie "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" made me want to pick up the original book. As it's extremely cheap on Amazon at the moment (and seems to drift in and out of print) I thought I'd grab it and see what all the fuss was about. 

First up, it's worth stating that the movie was very loosely based on this book - so if you're expecting to see Flintlock Wood, the amazing Steve the Monkey (possibly the best sidekick character in any kid's movie of the last 30 years) or cute weather girls, think again. 

This book is more whimsical, charming and fantastically illustrated. 

Telling the tale of the sleepy town of Chewandswallow, a grandfather's tall story depicts a town at the mercy of food-shaped weather. The inhabitants of Chewandswallow don't go out for groceries, they step out of their houses and open their umbrellas to see what the weather holds. 

I loved Ron Barrett's excellent depictions of the food storms. Delicate little strokes of inkwork to flesh out flying bacon or storms of stale bread. Everything looks good enough to eat. 

So if you're a fan of the film, go grab the book anyway as it's a fine little bedtime story that isn't quite as manic and crazy as the movie, but definitely deserves a place in your bookcase. 

Charlotte's best bit: Flying olives!

Daddy's favourite bit: What would health and safety say about kids being hit in the face with red hot pancakes?

Rating: 5 out of 5