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pussreboots's review against another edition
4.0
Pickles to Pittsburgh by Judi Barrett is is the sequel to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
Food continues to rain down in Chewandswallow. It's gotten larger and larger and more out of control. Now that the residents have evacuated they have to decide what to do with their weather problem.
Rather than see this over-sized food as a problem (as it is in the movie adaptation of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), the food is seen as a blessing. There's a chance to share the bounty, hence the Pickles to Pittsburgh.
As I mentioned in my review of the first book, the artwork, while retro feeling, did provide much of the artistic inspiration for the film. That holds true for the sequel. As the food here is naturally occurring, it's seen as a natural resource.
If you read the book with a child who has seen the movie, take a chance to talk about how it's similar and different. They will recognize many of the scenes from the second half of the movie but they might be surprised at how differently these scenes are described in the book.
Four stars
Food continues to rain down in Chewandswallow. It's gotten larger and larger and more out of control. Now that the residents have evacuated they have to decide what to do with their weather problem.
Rather than see this over-sized food as a problem (as it is in the movie adaptation of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), the food is seen as a blessing. There's a chance to share the bounty, hence the Pickles to Pittsburgh.
As I mentioned in my review of the first book, the artwork, while retro feeling, did provide much of the artistic inspiration for the film. That holds true for the sequel. As the food here is naturally occurring, it's seen as a natural resource.
If you read the book with a child who has seen the movie, take a chance to talk about how it's similar and different. They will recognize many of the scenes from the second half of the movie but they might be surprised at how differently these scenes are described in the book.
Four stars
xterminal's review against another edition
3.0
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. ***
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. ***
luann's review against another edition
3.0
This one isn't quite as fun as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, but still worth reading if you enjoyed that one. My favorite illustration involves camels and giant slices of pizza falling from the sky attached to parachutes.
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