Review of Cloudy with Meatballs 2 (no spoliers) and a Discussion about the Barrett Books (with spoilers)

“So a decision was made to abandon the town of Chewandswallow.” (Barrett, 1978, Cloudy, n.p.)


Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 opens with the town of Swallow Falls leaving their island. The founder of a company called Live Corps, best known for its production of a food bar, and Flint’s childhood idol, comes to clear the island of the excess food, while SF’s citizens are relocated. Six months later, the group of friends find themselves traveling back to Swallow Falls to shut of the Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator which has started creating foodanimals that are proving to be uncontrollable and dangerous to the Live Corps crews. Operation shut down the replicator begins . . .

As usual, I have a feeling that our review will differ from many other reviews (our paper gave it a 2 out of 5). I will admit that many of the jokes were not funny (the few poop jokes were just yucky) and the character development that existed in the first film was absent from this version. Other the other hand, I thought the soundtrack was great, the visuals were stunning (and reminiscent of Barrett’s—that discussion to come later), and according to my husband, Victor, there were a scattering of really funny moments. He also finds it slightly better than the Percy Jackson film, if that helps. 

Emery's comment:I like how it has the same dialogue as the first movie in some parts. Ex wwwwwwwwhhhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is also another weirder ape. And the food are so cuuuuttteeee!!! Plus it has a nice balance of puns.

Now, onto a discussion of the Barrett books (I'm going to keep this short, but occasionally I feel the need to show my literary side). 

The Barrett books (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (1978) and its sequel, Pickles to Pittsburgh (1997) and the recent Planet of the Pies (2013) which I haven’t read yet, but will!) are told from the point of view of a young girl, and her brother Henry. After their grandfather accidentally flips a pancake onto Henry’s head, he’s inspired to tell them a bedtime story about Chewandswallow, a town where food rains down from the sky, and people are content, until the foodweather becomes increasingly dangerous and the islanders flee for their lives on slices of stale bread.

In the sequel, the grandfather sends a postcard that inspires his granddaughter to dream about Chewandswallow, which “from the air looks like gigantic feast” (Pickles, 1997, n.p.). The two children then explore the various vegetation which consists of oversized food.

Although the differences between the two books is obvious, (the kid tells the story, there’s no scientist, the food is not alive in the sequel), there are many similarities in the representation of the island. For example, I noted the pats of butter that are featured in both versions and the look of the island from the distance. I like how they book starts and ends in black and white, whereas the scenes on Chewandswallow are in color. And grandfather has a bushy mustache much like Flint’s father’s.

I think the film adaptations are nice and admit that a film just showing two kids climbing over large food probably wouldn’t make for an engaging hour and a half. Alas, as in many film adaptations of children’s books, the largest difference can be found in the “messages” the book and film delivers.

First, the film.

Live Corps turns out to want to use Flint’s machine to replicate the island’s inhabitants to grind into their food bars.

Now, the book.

Crews harvest the “non-living” food on the island to solve the world’s hunger crisis.

Thoughts? 

Tech-Free Thursdays

Last week's Tech-Free Thursday Dinner
(we do use technology still to cook)

The textbook I use in one of my courses asks students to consider how will they sustain themselves as teachers. In other words, “How will they not join the large numbers of teachers who have left the profession?”. It's a great question, although when I started teaching, I was too optimistic and full of energy to ever think I would want to leave. But, they're right--and I became one of those teachers. 

I wish I had thought about this issue sooner and my strategy for getting through the week (teaching is exhausting) became a combination of little things: Developing a grading routine, taking naps after school, Sunday home-made spa nights, and tech-free Tuesdays. On Tuesdays, I would not do school work after school, kept the television off, and spent the evening reading and sipping fresh mint tea. These rituals really helped, as silly as they may seem.

Tech-free Tuesdays disappeared during grad school and didn’t reappear until about 3 years ago. At that time, I felt as if television, video games, and the Internet were consuming our lives. So, on Tuesdays, I cooked (which was usually disastrous), we played board games, and we talked. Tech-free Tuesdays pretty much disappeared last year when I accepted some administrative duties—and I missed them.

This semester I teach on Tuesday nights so I have set up Tech-free Thursdays for the sake of keeping the alliterative aspect of that evening. And, I’m so glad they’re back. 

How do you sustain yourself? 

Emery's comment: WOW that was short. Well, I  have a new saga to read so i guess tech- free t days are kinda ok.

On Homework: Mine and Emery's

Emery's Creation after the Conclusion of his unit on the Maya

Yes, I have homework. There is no possible way I can get all of my work done (including grading homework) during my work hours of 7:30 to 3:30 (and beyond at least 2 times a week). And, since I’m incapable (and frankly unwilling) to do school work at home, I found myself at a local restaurant this morning reading through a student’s dissertation proposal because my university rents out my parking lot (for which I pay a crazy amount of money for a parking spot in each month) to football fans. After an hour and a half, I found myself getting a little anxious, so I moved to the local library for the second session. I usually go to my office on Sunday mornings for a couple of hours to plan for the next week (and I must say, I’m appalled by the mess the football fans leave on my campus—but that’s for another post), and I’ll be there tomorrow. If homework is defined as work done outside of school hours, then I, too, suffer from it.

It seems as if homework has been on my mind lately. I have a student who is planning to conduct her dissertation study on homework (she sent me a link to this commentary titled "Thirty Minutes Top" on how parents should be able to decide what homework they can send to school for their children to do—I found it amusing and wishing I could send Emery to school to practice violin), and I encounter my son’s homework on a daily basis. This year, his homework is comprised of mainly the following:

1.    Reading logs (he’s supposed to read each day for 20 minutes and log it in)

2.    Kahn Academy (No idea what or how much of KA he’s supposed to do. It’s possible those expectations were communicated to us, and I missed it.)

3.    Math problems and review sheet

4.    Various research projects, for example, write a bibliography and print a copy to bring to school.

5.    Various worksheets and workbook pages

6.    Study for weekly tests/ quizzes: Tuesday, Social studies; Wednesday, ELA; Thursday, Math; Friday, Science.

It’s #4 that nearly killed us this past week. Imagine this scenario, which is probably very common in many households:

Monday morning 6:15 a.m. (we must leave the house at 7:15 to get to school on time so I can get to my 8:00 a.m. class)

E: We need to print out my bibliography!

M: Okay. (sets up computer) I don’t see a file on this jump drive.

E: (speechless) I saved it at school.

M: It’s not there—did you pull out your jump drive from the computer without ejecting it?

E: What? 

For the next several moments Victor and I are search Amazon and Emery’s school’s library catalog for the three sources he used for his project. We try our absolute best with “It’s called The Maya and it’s written by someone named Judith.” We thrust computer screens in his face with various covers of books to see if he recognizes them.

And, then, I learn he’s used the citation generator option in Word—something I haven’t used yet, preferring just to do it as best as I can from memory and then editing it later. It takes another 5 minutes to find that option—luckily Emery used it to create his original bibliography so he had little trouble remaking it—

He got a check mark on the assignment, so I guess our hard work paid off. Later, after I interrogate/ yell at him in the car, I learned that he didn’t give his file a name when he saved it at school.

Do you find yourself having to teach the process of doing something rather than the actual content? 

Emery's comment: the best part is it was due Tuesday instead of Monday. I hate technology  (except Nintendo.)

A Digital Book Review of Tom Angleberger's Jabba the Puppett

We used Animoto to create this Review

The problem of being a professor mom is that I tend to turn every endeavor with my son into a project. Emery is reluctant to turn this blog into a site that simply reviews books, films, and games, but I couldn’t help myself. After hearing him laugh and giggle his way through Tom Angleberger’s The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppett: An Origami Yoda Book, I just had to read it. I laughed and giggled my way through it too. And, then after my grad assistant showed my students the on-line video creation tool Animoto in class on Thursday that she uses to create book trailers for her students, I knew I wanted to try it. So, what better way then to create a trailer with Emery about a book we just read—after all, he had already folded the puppets . . . although some had perished in a previous battle . . .

Jabba the Puppett picks up where the previous book ended, with the principal’s announcement that McQuarrie Middle School, because of low standardized tests scores, would drop all extracurricular activities and replace them with the FunTime educational program—a complete learning experience with videos and worksheets. The students from the previous books reconvene with the help of their, at times, somewhat reluctant leader Yoda/ Captain Dwight to fight the evil forces of the administration and get back their beloved courses. It’s a funny, quick read told by a rotating series of narrators, each with his or her own puppet.

I find it interesting that this is the second book Emery’s read this year that encourages students to thwart the organized testing and grading system that causes much anxiety and relegating of students. He hasn’t organized his own rebellion yet—probably too much work to calculate just how many questions he can miss to pass a test . . . 

Emery's comment: I would have preferred Star Wars music.