Lunchbox – the story of your food (£8.99 from Walker Books) is a great but very simple book: it takes each ingredient in a typical lunchbox and explains where it has come from. So we learn about flour-making in mills, tomato-growing in hothouses, and cheese production processes.
Like many parents, I suspect, I worry about food ethics. This book is quite clever in sidestepping issues like food miles and exploitation of workers, while at the same time leaving the door open for those subjects to be introduced perhaps when your child is older. As a vegetarian, I found nothing to object to, either: the featured lunchbox is unremarkable, but incidentally meat-free.
To be honest, what first attracted me were the retro-style illustrations (very similar to school books of my far distant youth); what with those, a few added lessons about healthy eating, and little details like rounded corners so there’s nothing for my daughter to accidentally poke into her eye, this is a recent purchase I’m really pleased with.
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