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Treat of a tale will have kids begging for s'more
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If you're a parent around age 25 to 32, you might remember having read Cloudy With Chance of Meatballs when you were in early elementary school and may ow have read it to your own youngsters. It is a beloved classic. In about six weeks, it will appear as an animated film.
In the story, people in the town of Chewandswallow experience "weather" three times a day -- at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It isn't typical rain, however, and it doesn't snow white flakes. It rains stuff like soup and juice and snows stuff like mashed potatoes. And windstorms blow in hamburgers! When the portions get larger and larger, the town has a crisis at hand.
It's a cute and imaginative story that children often love to hear over and over again. At least ,it gets them thinking "Why not?". Author Judi Barrett and illustrator Ron Barrett followed it up with Pickles to Pittsburgh, wherein the Falling Food Company gets the surplus to hungry people around the world, (Wouldn't it be nice if it was that easy?) The book has its charm, but isn't a mega-hit like Cloudy .
Now comes the Barrett's The Marshmallow Incident. It's cute and imaginative as well, but seems to have symbolic meaning far beyond Cloudy. In it we have the town of Left and the town of Right and a yellow dotted line between that shall not be crossed by either righties or lefties. Until the Marshmallow War, that is, and someone wakes up to the fact that the line is ...well, silly.
Left and Right citizens discuss the demarcation and get rid of it -- and enjoy their marshmallows together ever after.
This is fun way to introduce kids to the mistake of irrational prejudice.
I think the Barrets have outdone themselves. Time will tell if marshmallows become as classic as meatballs, but, for the 3 to 9-year-old set, it's definitely a book to check out.
