Great conclusion to Cloudy with a chance of meatballs. Glad I had the chance to read with my son.

I enjoyed this book, but it's not nearly as good as the original. And if you haven't read the first book, this one won't really make any sense.

It's like the socially responsible rewrite of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. It had some great, and some repeat, illustrations, but I don't think we'll be reading it again.

Children's Picture Book

Sequel to Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs.

The storytelling siblings in this story return to the quaint little island town of Chew-and-Swallow for the aftermath of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs!

The sequel to Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs starts with the people of Chewandswallow returning to Chewandswallow and using the giant food found there to feed people.

The illustrations are ink and watercolor.

Judi Barrett, Pickles to Pittsburgh (Atheneum, 1997)

Almost twenty years after the original, there was finally a sequel to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Unsurprisingly, it's not quite as good as the original. Much of the whimsy has disappeared from the concept, though one can't fault the direction the story takes; I'm sure the question popped up every time Judi Barrett took the Meatballs show on the road: “why don't the people of Chewandswallow use all that food to feed the hungry kids in [fill in the blank]?” And that's exactly what we get here; Kate and Henry, our protagonists from the original, find themselves back in Chewandswallow in a dream Kate has. This time, the town has turned its food-based weather into a thriving export industry, sending its bounty around the world to feed the hungry and end drought. Quite civic-minded, and to be honest, a little boring. What saves it from obscurity is Ron Barrett's faithfulness to the artwork of the original; you'd never know nineteen years passed between book A and book B, and the two can be read together without any sort of jarring when you cross between them, thanks to the artwork's similarity. If you've read the first, you'll eventually come to this one, though I doubt you'll be tempted to revisit it as often. ***

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if it rained food and literally everything was made out of food? Pickles to Pittsburgh clearly depicts what a food-world would look like. Henry and Kate dream of the city their grandfather is visiting; a city that is completely made up of food. It rains orange juice and giant slices of pizza and pie line the streets. The kids eventually come back to reality and tell Grandpa about their amazing dream.
I felt a little lost in this story, maybe because I did not read the prequel, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Putting that aside, I thought the book was well-written and miraculously illustrated. When the kids are in reality, the drawings are black and white. During their dream, everything comes to life through all sorts of colors. The fantastic illustrations definitely made up for the story that seemed a bit hard to follow. I could have looked at the detailed pictures in this book for hours and thoroughly enjoy it. I just wish this book would have been easy to follow without reading the first version.

In this sequel to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Kate and Henry can't wait for their grandfather to return. They even make him a special cake for his welcome home.

The next before his return, Kate and Henry fall asleep while staring at a post card from their grandfather. In their dreams, they find a town filled with giant food and explore it.

I liked this as much as the first book. I think it was a enjoyable read and those who liked the first book will probably like this one too.

Pickles to Pittsburgh (1997)
Picture Book
Format: Book
Plot summary: Dozing off while contemplating Grandpa's unusual vacation, Kate dreams about Chewandswallow, where it snows popcorn and rains sandwiches, and the fate of the falling food intrigues her.
No special considerations.
Review citation (if available): Bateman, Teresa. School Library Journal. January 2010.
Section source used to find the material: School Library journal review
Recommended age: Pre-K to 2nd grade

Two kids, a brother and a sister, are dreamily transported back to the magical, food-filled and fun-filled land of Chewandswallow to aid in possibly solving the world food crisis by way of shipping huge oversized food by boat. (I can picture it now: "Ice cream cone RIGHT AHEAD!!!" Sorry, Titanic fans!) A mouth-watering feast for the imagination and partly inspirational for the Cloudy W/Meatballs film series yet this book, I suspect, will make the movies seem like (SAY IT!) small potatoes!!!

I absolutely loved Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs when I was a kid, and still do. Unfortunately, this sequel just doesn't have the same feel as the first. I was a bit disappointed. I'm sure most kids like it, though.

This was a fun sequel to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs but it wasn't as novel as the first book so my kids didn't want to read it too much. It was nice, however, to find out what happend to the city of Chewandswallow.