Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (by Judi Barrett)

Hamburgers fall from the sky, as do scrambled eggs (with a side of toast) and cherry pie--plus, you guessed it, meatballs. When the weather turns nasty, down rains a deluge of stinky gorgonzola, overcooked broccoli, and thick tomato sauce. The lengthy text is often a problem for young listeners, but the humorous story and detailed illustrations may hold their interest.

This story is a gratifying, if lightweight, dish of foolishness. Its aim is for laughs -- and it gets them, through sight gags for both kids and adults, humor presented in the deadpan tones of an old-style weather forecast ("Dinner one night consisted of lamb chops, becoming heavy at times, with occasional ketchup"), and the sheer preposterousness of events. Don't look for hidden depths here; the story lives on the surface, and as slapstick it works just fine.

The text rambles at times: Almost half of a class of 6-year-olds was looking out the window as a read-aloud neared its finish, and the librarian was delivering a bright reading at that. "Too long," groaned one child. The illustrations look like something found in a turn-of-the-century magazine, with their hectic line work and wealth of details. It has a bit of science fiction too: Those giant T-bones could easily have come from a spaceship.