Book Review: Pickles to Pittsburg

Pickles to Pittsburg, the sequel to Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs takes place almost entirely in a dream sequence. Kate, a young girl, falls asleep looking at a postcard her Grandpa has sent from his vacation. She dreams about her own adventure, piloting a plane to Chewandswallow, a town where giant food falls from the sky. The written imagry is vivid, while using words simple enough for a preschooler, with descriptions like:

Surrounded by milky blue skies and with Henry as my co-pilot, we carefully steer our plane through large puffs of mist. Soon we find ourselves soaring over an island, a very lumpy island. From the air it looks like a gigantic feast. Immense Vegetables, salads, and desserts lie beneath us. The mountains look like huge loaves of bread.

but the illustrations are what really draw in my kids. The incredibly detailed drawings portray an imaginary world where orange juice rains down from the sky and is collected in containers for shipping, and where falling ice cream melts into a lake of milk. We notice something new almost every time we read Pickles to Pittsburg, and the kids sometimes laugh out loud at the pictures.

What really makes me love this book though is the sense of adventure, and the idea that when you travel something new and amazing might be around any corner.

note: it isn't necessary to read "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" before enjoying this book

Related Links
Amazon: Pickles to Pittsburg, by by Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett
Amazon: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Filed Under: book-review

0 comments | Posted on September 9, 2008 | Save to del.icio.us

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