It's back to school and back to making school lunch. Always a tough one. We want to be good parents. We want our kids to eat well. We want to be sane. These things don't always correlate. My son's elementary school doesn't have a cafeteria. It forces me to make lunch every day, so it's better, right? Sometimes. Or sometimes he gets a cheese stick, a bag of popcorn, a dry turkey sandwich, and an apple he never eats, just like the lunch my character Sage has everyday in book #4 of Phoebe G. Green. But sometimes my son gets homemade chicken vegetable soup, edamame, a bag of sliced red peppers, carrots, and cucumbers, and hummus for dipping. I feel good making it, but honestly he's not much more likely to eat that lunch than the other lunch. So I keep on keeping on. For what it's worth, here are five tips that make it easier for me, sometimes. Because in my parenting book, if it works sometimes, it works.
#1: Don't ask your kid if they want this or that. If you pack it, it's your call. The other way to go is to let them pack it and keep your mouth shut if it's somewhat healthy. You'd be surprised what a kid will eat if they make it, even if it seems weird to you. #2: Sandwiches are lame. I don't know about you, but my kids hate sandwiches in their lunch box. These aren't lovely fresh sandwiches on toasted sourdough with prosciutto, arugula, and homemade garlic aioli. These are quickly smashed together lunch meats and cheese on dry supermarket bread. They'd rather have a container of rice and beans any day. But once in a while I still make them. I don't know why. #3: Simplify the chaos. I put four things in their lunches: a fruit or veggie, a dairy or legume (like yogurt, a container of chick peas, or edamame), a snacky type food like popcorn or a granola bar. And last but not least, the main event like pesto pasta, lentil or chicken soup, rice and beans, a quick quesadilla with beans, salsa, and cheese in it, turkey roll ups with avocado, leftover meatloaf, turkey in a corn tortilla with hummus and sliced red pepper, or tuna fish with celery and crackers. Those are some of my kids' faves. #4: Get all Super Mom and write down twenty low-prep things they like for lunch. Twenty sounds like a lot, but break it down into 4 fruits/veggies, 4 dairy/legumes, 4 snacks, and 4 main events. Then you have a go-to rotation and don't have to reinvent the wheel all the time. #5: If all else fails, give them the same darn thing every day. I'm all for adventurous eating, but if it's well-balanced and they eat it, why not? Maybe dinners and weekend meals are times they try new foods. And maybe they'll get bored and beg for something different. Even better. My kids are pretty good eaters. Some of that is just how they are naturally, but I also expose them regularly to new foods and they see me cooking and eating lots of different things. That doesn't mean they eat well all the time. It's about constant exposure, not constant success. One taste is a success. Then they can fill up on their regular foods. It's about setting them up as adventurous and healthy adult eaters, not having the fanciest eater on the block at age seven. That gives me hope when sometimes all my son wants to eat is pasta and yogurt. Oh and buy them a copy of Phoebe G. Green: Lunch Will Never Be the Same or Farm Fresh Fun and see what it inspires! *Stay tuned for info on my Lunch Will Never Be the Same event in Hastings on Hudson, NY at The Purple Crayon Center, Sunday, October 26 from 3-5pm: A family event including a reading/book signing, a food expert panel, tasty snacks, and lots of school lunch inspiration. More details to come!
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Next month the first two books of my chapter book series, Phoebe G. Green, hit the stores. I just finished what will probably be my last round of revisions on the fourth book of the series (each one its own little marathon, but that's for another post!) and now I have a little breathing room for some reflection. I've been thinking about how this experience is different from when my first book, The Whole Story of Half a Girl, came out.
I can't help but make the parenting analogy. My first book was like my first child. Everything was new. I was in awe. I didn't know anything. Everything felt equally important and kind of terrifying. It was very special, thrilling, and somewhat strange. This time around, I'm a little more relaxed and experienced. I know that the series will have the life it has, no matter how many tweets I tweet, blog posts I write, and appearances I make, yet I want to put myself out there even more. I'm still in awe about the fact that I get to write books for a living and people actually read them. I'm in awe that I'm allowed to enter the private relationship between reader and story, especially the one of child reader and story. A lot of magic happens in that space and I'm grateful to be a part of it. I'm more knowledgeable about marketing and publicity. And with each revision, hopefully I'm able to sharpen my skills. I'm less nervous about public appearances and have a better idea of what to do. But now it will be different in ways I can't know and I'm most excited for that--the unknown, the adventure, the new connections. Who knows where this is all leading? I'll tell you when I get there. I'm proud to introduce to you the official book trailer for my upcoming chapter book series, PHOEBE G. GREEN. I'm even more proud to say that my wonderful editor/director/producer hubby, David Beinstein, took time out of his busy schedule and made this just for me! That's love. So enjoy, please share, and don't forget the first two Phoebe books are hitting book stores this October. Yum! Nothing like a good review of your work to not only make you feel proud and excited, but also relieved. Getting my work published has been such a great experience and I feel grateful that I'm able to share my work with so many people and get paid for it! It can be a little scary, though, particularly the whole review thing. It's a subjective process and you never know what's going to happen. But luckily this happened! Can you hear me breathing that sigh of relief? Now go pre-order those books!
KIRKUS REVIEW "List-making foodie Phoebe G. Green adjusts to the addition of a new best friend. Phoebe and Sage ("who's a boy, if you were wondering") are best friends. They are both excited about being in Mrs. B's third-grade class this year. Also exciting is the addition of a new girl, Camille, from France. Phoebe is especially taken with Camille at lunchtime, when the kids compare lunches. Camille brings duck, goat cheese, strawberries and a tiny loaf of bread—and that is just on the first day! Phoebe becomes obsessed with Camille's interesting food and makes a plan to get invited to her house, where she imagines gold goblets full of fabulous food. The plan involves inviting Camille over to Phoebe's first, but the girl's fancy menu falls flat (her family is more a salad-from-a-bag family). While Phoebe is focused on Camille and her food, original best buddy Sage is pushed to the background, even though his mother does cook Indian food. Hiranandani has a light touch when exploring the friendship issues of these three likable characters. Nothing is over-the-top, and the plot is fun and easy to understand for the newest chapter-book readers. Gently humorous black-and-white illustrations pair nicely with the text. With all the foodies out there, this delightful series deserves a long shelf life…and many more courses. (Fiction. 7-11)" Introducing the first two covers for my new chapter book series, Phoebe G. Green! Books #1 and #2 will both be out this October from Grosset and Dunlap. The adorable and fabulous cover art by illustrator Joelle Dreidemy, is hot off the press and I just had to share. I can't tell you how thrilled I am to get Phoebe on the shelves and into your hands! Still, the pub date is months away...sigh. In the meantime, here's a little about Phoebe to tempt you. She's in third grade and discovers her inner foodie when a girl from France moves to town. She's funny, she's brave, she's silly, and sometimes gets in her own way, but that's okay, because she usually figures out how (deliciously) to make everything right again. So get ready, because your lunch may never be the same after reading about Phoebe and her food-inspired adventures. You can pre-order the books at your local bookstore or online here, here or here. Stay tuned! More about Phoebe to come! I felt inspired to write this after reading my friend, author Heather Tomlinson's astute blog post on diversity and the two recent New York Times articles by Walter Dean Myers and his son, Christopher Myers on the lack of color in children's books.
I think a lot about diversity. When I was growing up in a small Connecticut suburb I was the only half-Indian Jewish girl I knew for miles and miles. I never read about someone like me in a book and I read a lot of books. I found ways to identify with the characters, but I always felt like something about me had to be altered to fit. In 2012, I published my middle-grade novel, The Whole Story of Half a Girl, which is loosely based on my childhood experiences. I wrote it so someone like me could see themselves in it. I also wrote it for anyone who felt different, who felt outside the majority, who felt like they were supposed to alter something about themselves to fit in. When I first entered the public school in my town as a fifth-grader after being in a private alternative school, I became friends with some of the African-American kids who were bused in from another less affluent town. I was an outsider and it seemed to me, so were they. They sat at their own table separate from the rest of the students, the white students. But I wasn't bused in. My skin wasn't dark enough. I was different from the kids who were bused in, but I wasn't like the white kids either. I realized then, that I wasn't like anyone else and never would be. I wasn't like my Jewish relatives and I wasn't like my Indian relatives either. I didn't know where I belonged. Enter Lisa Bonet. She was a revelation to me. She was the one person in the media I connected to the most. I loved The Cosby Show, but I also somehow knew (how did one find out these things before the internet?) that in real life Lisa Bonet's mother was white and Jewish and her father was African-American. She was the closest I knew to anyone like me and I was obsessed with her, her style, her confidence, her beauty. She was so cool and she was like me. I never found my “Lisa Bonet” in a book, but if I had, my mind would have been blown. There is a difference between relating to a book and a TV show. Reading a book is a private, solitary act. When you connect deeply to a literary character, it feels like that character was created just for you. It's a powerful experience. If I had found my Lisa Bonet in a book, I would have felt truly recognized for the first time in my life. As I got older, I understood that I was as much a singular oddity as any human being, but I do tend to connect more with people who have experienced some sense of otherness, have felt singular and odd in whatever way they have. I enjoy filling my world with diverse friendships and diverse thoughts and will always write with diversity in mind, but diversity is diverse. It can be expressed in so many different ways--through skin color, cultural identity, sexual identity, religious identity, socio-economic identity, or all of the above. I want my children to read about many perspectives both to identify with and learn from. So bring on the books about diverse African-American experiences, and Asian experiences, and Jewish experiences, and Jewish, part Asian, part African-American experiences, and everything else our world is that I didn't mention here. I hope some day for children's literature to be like a well-shuffled deck of cards. In the meantime, it's my job as a parent to expose my kids to more diverse reading selections. As writers, it's our duty to reflect not only our world, but the world. |
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