The Marshmallow Incident

July 27, 2009
The rival towns of Left and Right provide the fanciful medieval setting of this middling fable by the creators of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
. Recalling etchings, Ron Barrett's pen-and-ink art humorously depicts the towns' separatist stances (“We proudly serve leftovers” announces a sign at Lefty's restaurant, while the words on Right's clock tower, which displays only the right side of the clock face, boasts “Always the Right Time”). Mayhem erupts when someone inadvertently does the unthinkable and crosses the dotted yellow line separating the two towns. Armor-clad members of the Order of the Ambidextrous Knights of the Dotted Yellow Line begin firing the only ammunition they have: thousands of marshmallows. A knight finally “realized how silly the whole thing was” and suggests that the divisive line between the towns be wiped out, which ends the marshmallow attack—and the longstanding enmity. Many of the tale's particulars are silly indeed, and the message about respecting differences ends up getting buried beneath the fluff. Ages 3–8.

November 1, 2009
Gr 1-4-Two towns are divided by a dotted yellow line. On one side is Left, where all the left-handed people reside. On the other]well, I'm sure you get the idea. For untold generations, nobody crossed from one town to the other, and the boundary was guarded by the Order of Ambidextrous Knights. Then someone from Right stumbled over the line. What chaos! What outrage! The knights began shootingbut the only ammunition they could find was their vast supply of marshmallows. As the countryside filled with fluffy white sweets, the citizens' thoughts also became fluffier and a decision was reached to eradicate the line. Peace and feasting (and, presumably, sugar shock) ensued. This is a moderately interesting, if not scintillating, fable. The moral of the tale and the marshmallows appear to have been accidentally thrown into the same book. The text might well sink under a surplus of words. But Ron Barrett's illustrations keep the book afloat with funny, and punny, details. While "The Marshmallow Incident" probably won't be first on everyone's reading list, some of the notionsand most of the illustrationswill raise a smile, for all the right (and left) reasons."Susan Weitz, formerly at Spencer-Van Etten School District, Spencer, NY"

Copyright 2009 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2009
Grades K-3 The Town of Left and the Town of Right, so named because the people are left-handed or right-handed, are neighbors but separated by a bright yellow dotted line. The Order of the Ambidextrous Knights of the Dotted Yellow Line guard and maintain the lineand the thousands of boxes of marshmallows that one of the knights won in a poetry contest. All is orderly until the day a Right man accidentally crosses the line trying to corral some kids. Its instant war! The ammunition? Marshmallows, of course. Other stories of towns at war for silly reasons exist but few with a device as clever (or as sticky) as marshmallows; only the Barrettsof Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (1978) famecould create such a goofy, gooey, improbable premise. Digitally colored pen-and-ink drawings use straight lines and cross-hatching to add texture and plenty of visual puns. Delicious absurdity bound to have a long shelf life. Smore, please.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)