CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS

A flying pancake at breakfast triggers Grandpa's bedtime story set in the far-off land of Chewanswallow, where the food comes out of the sky and ""whatever the weather served, that was what they ate."" Most of the book consists of nothing more than elaborations on this conceit, with running menu information decked out in weather report terminology, but Judi Barrett's examples are nutty enough so that kids won't tire of the gag--even though Ron Barrett's flippy pop cartoons are too literal to enlarge it. The plot thickens with the maple syrup, and at last the portions grow so large that the people are being bombarded and buried by food--and so they all sail off on peanut-butter sandwiches to a land where food is purchased at the supermarket. A dubious improvement perhaps, but Grandpa's imaginings are very close to a little kid's funny bone--which everyone knows is located somewhere along the intestinal tract.