Giant Meatball

by Robert Weinstock

Overview

A merry meatball is rolling a path of destruction through a small town. He rolls over pets, petunias, and the library—where he refuses to shush. When he rolls over the mayor herself, the townspeople know it's time. Time to invite the meatball to dinner. . .

Sly humor abounds in this charming, offbeat story that will appeal to anyone who's ever faced a bully—and, of course, to spaghetti fans of all ages.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780547539867
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	06/01/2008
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
Lexile:	AD940L (what's this?)
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

ROBERT WEINSTOCK is a graphic designer, former children's book editor, and author of Gordimer Byrd's Reminder. He lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

K-Gr 3- An enormous meatball "bomple[s] and bounce[s] his way" through the countryside, blissfully oblivious to the problems he creates. Despite leaving behind a trail of farms with crushed raspberry patches and disquieted cows, and disrupting city streets, the meatball remains confident that the people "...can't get enough of me." The townsfolk's polite suggestions for caution graduate to furious billboards, which get no results. Fed up, the mayor decides to give the troublemaker "a good talking-to," but the meatball temporarily flattens her. The final page shows the villagers seated at a large table that holds a gargantuan (covered) dish with a sign, "Menu du Jour-Meatball." The dialogue is likely to confound some kids: "He sullies our jellies and jeopardizes our jams." Although the cartoon artwork, drawn with black Prismacolor pencil and colored in Adobe Illustrator, has quirky charm, the lead character is vaguely disturbing. Apparently raw, he is a lumpy pink blob with dents, one eyebrow, and short arms and legs. He wears white socks and dress shoes, and has buck teeth. If you have a picture-book audience for dark humor and oddball characters, you might consider this book for your collection.-Gay Lynn Van Vleck, Henrico County Library, Glen Allen, VA

School Library Journal

In the fine tradition of stories featuring oversized food, here's a cautionary tale about a narcissistic meatball who comes to a bad and sudden end. So full of himself is the boulder-sized 'ball bounding destructively through pastures, gardens and streets that he ignores the farmer's bleats of protest, the marmalade-maker's boiling fury and even-kiss of death-the librarian's furious shushing. Weinstock's writing, which features lines like "But the giant meatball was too woozy with whirling and whistling to listen," outpaces his cartoon art-which owes much to James Marshall's for the way figures are depicted, and centers on a rotund protagonist that, being colored an odd shade of off-pink, looks more like silly putty than anything you'd want to eat. Nonetheless, once the meatball rolls over the Mayor his fate is sealed, and he ends his mad career as all meatballs must. Yum. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews