by Carly Lejnieks

Created on: April 05, 2009

What an exceptionally entertaining and enchanting book! The author, Judi Barrett, brilliantly takes the absolutely absurd (marvelous ingredients for a children's book) and brings it to life through magnificent, cartoon-style illustrations. The story begins with grandpa cooking pancakes in the kitchen. Suddenly, while flipping one, a pancake soars across the room and lands on his grandson's face. Later that evening (inspired by the flying pancake), grandpa tells the children a wild bedtime story. The tale takes place in a fictitous town called Chewandswallow. It is a very strange place indeed, where no food stores can be found. The people of Chewandswallow do not need to buy or prepare any of their meals. All of their food falls from the sky; what ever the weather serves they eat.

In Chewandswallow it never rains rain; it rains juice. It snows mashed potatoes and green peas, and the wind blows in storms of hamburgers (what a great place to live!). In one scene, the characters wake up to breakfast in motion (literally). There is juice pouring down, with sunny-side-up eggs and jelly toast dangling from trees. Another scene depicts frankfurters blowing into Ralph's Roofless Restaurant; with the mustard posing quite a messy threat. The people of Chewandswallow always leave the house with plate and fork in hand, to catch the meal of the day. For those who want to bring leftovers home, the illustrator shows someone holding an umbrella filled with food. It is clever at its finest.

The layout of the book changes with every page turn. It demonstrates how the author effectively brings movement and film-like quality to the printed page. This graphical approach is perfect given the notion of food falling from the sky, three meals a day. As you read the book, the senses are thoroughly enlivened. You may find yourself smelling food (at the very least you'll wind up hungry!). Your children may even attempt to reach their hands into the pictures, pretending to grab and eat the food off the pages. It is a delightfully funny and interactive reading experience.

After the weather takes an even more bizarre turn - smothering the school with the world's largest pancake and entangling the city in spaghetti the town's residents abandon Chewandswallow and set sail to a safer land on large pieces of stale bread. They land in a new town and build houses out of more stale bread. One of their biggest challenges is learning how to prepare food. None of them have every cooked before. It's fascinating, bizarre and entertaining. What else would you expect from this book? It is a fantastic read that comes with very high recommendations.

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