cloudy with a chance of meatballs by judi barrett

However, even as a child I loved stories like The Land of Cockaigne, where, as mentioned above, food grew on trees, the walls of the houses were made of gingerbread and the rivers flowed with wine and ready-to-eat seafood.

I do wonder though if I would have seen the presented dystopic elements all that clearly in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs if I had read this story as a child (probably not). Now I have always enjoyed stories about food getting out of control, and the idea of an El Dorado like food utopia ending up as a dystopia really resonates with me, both tickling my funny bone and also of course making me think a bit. There is thus a strong attitude featured in folklore that free and magical food (and that one does not have to do much in order to receive or eat it) is not only often too good to be true, but that it can easily have adverse effects if one is unable or in some cases, unwilling to control and master it. And in my humble opinion, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs actually seems to combine two European folklore traditions, the legend of the Land of Cockaigne, the so-called Schlaraffenland, a utopian land of milk and honey, where residents do not have to work and where food is not only readily available, but where fish, already cooked, swim in the rivers, and the houses are made of gingerbread and candies, and indeed the many folklore stories presenting uncontrollable cooking and food (often with magic pots that continue cooking porridge etc. When did “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” become an allegory for the dangers of climate change?! This book, which was always completely captivating to me as a child, turns out was also a prophecy about the world I would live in as an adult.While Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is of course first and foremost simply a fun romp, both Judi Barret’s narrative and Ron Barrett’s accompanying artwork also manage to convey rather vividly how food can become a rather massive problem when it is uncontrollable or uncontrolled. And most of the time it rained milk afterwards.”

Butter and jelly sprinkled down for the toast. “After a brief shower of orange juice, low clouds of sunny-side up eggs moved in followed by pieces of toast. Everything is jolly and delicious, until the weather began to change and intensify, to the point where people’s meals weren’t only disrupted, but the food storms were becoming dangerous. For breakfast, lunch, and dinner, townspeople simply grab their dishes and cutlery, then go stand outside and let the skies supply their food and drink. Growing up, did you have a parent or grandparent that was incredible at making up stories? In this classic, a grandfather tells an enthralling tall tale about a land called Chewandswallow where the weather provides all the meals.

If you can measure the amount of time that’s passed since you last read this book in decades, then you need to read it again.

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs by judi barrett