by Emily Monaco

Created on: March 26, 2009

I knew everything about the land of Chewandswallow before I could even read: Judi Barrett's book is a children's classic that I had memorized by the time I was four, and even once I had moved on to bigger things like chapter books, I still returned to the paperback section to read about meatball rainstorms.

The book takes the reader on an imaginative tour through a town where the weather snow, rain and sunshine are replaced by meatballs, jello and giant pancakes. Such a simple idea, but one that has found a place in the childhood memories of many Americans. The text is minimal, but the story and the images really stimulate the imagination, and one comes away with an experience much larger than a picture book with a handful of pages.

The best part of the entire book is the illustrations: old-fashioned pencil drawings with light colors transport the reader while still leaving the imagination room to fill in the details of what it would be like for the child's favorite food to fall from the sky. From the giant jello sunset to the classic cover showing Grandpa holding out a plate to catch a meatball, the illustrations supplement the simple text with wild and crazy ideas that a child can expand on in his or her own imagination.

With the onset of the new digital animation feature film, fans of the classic are torn on whether the new design will be as good as the original, but, as with all books turned to film, some people will be fans and others will wish the classic had never been tampered with. The important thing is that this brilliant book is finally in the spotlight, and a whole new generation of children will be exposed to this magical land.

The feature film will obviously have a slightly different story (Internet reports hint at a scientist that tries to use the weather phenomena to feed the world's hungry), but the original picture book follows a simple storyline in the way that only a picture book can. It communicates the moral that there can be too much of a good thing: after the original surprise and wonder that the gastronomic weather in the town of Chewandswallow provides to the reader, the characters become overwhelmed by pancakes crushing buildings and too many sandwiches on one day.

Before your children have the chance to see the new film, pull this dusty paperback off the shelves and have them read it or read it to them: it is one of the best books for a wild imagination, and they will have the memories of reading it long after the movie has come and gone.

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