A review by nakedsushi
French Kids Eat Everything: How Our Family Moved to France, Cured Picky Eating, Banned Snacking, and Discovered 10 Simple Rules for Raising Happy, Healthy Eaters by Karen Le Billon
2.0
2.5 stars, but who's counting?
This book could have been shorter if it was edited better to cut down on the repetition. It seemed like every chapter contained at least a couple introduction pages about the family's situation in France and French culture. It gets pretty tiring reading the same thing over and over again.
While it was interesting to read about the differences in food culture between France and North America, I had no sympathy for the woman writing this book. It was her idea to uproot her family from Vancouver and move to the small village in rural France her husband grew up in despite his not wanting to return there. Then when she gets there, she becomes some whiny, complaining person who can't seem to adapt to being in the country of "her choice."
More specifically, she goes on for chapters about how hard it was to get her kids to eat the "French way" but I just thought she wasn't trying hard enough. Instead of educating her children about tasting things they may be scared of, she gives in to their crying and whining and pretty much let them choose what they eat for the better part of a year in France. Then she has some magical revelation (No shit, Sherlock) that changing her kids eating habits means she first has to change her bad habits of 1.) not rushing everyone through family meal times, 2.) hovering over her kids in a cloud of food anxiety, and 3.) being more open to trying new foods HERSELF. Seriously, this was a woman who had to have her (now) husband cut up her fish for her when dining with his parents for the first time because she didn't know how to eat fish??
It's not like there wasn't anything useful in the book. There were some useful things that I would probably want to do if I ever have kids like the "no snacking between meals" rule and the "you don't have to like it, but you do have to taste it" rule. It's just that even though this woman was writing about these things, she wasn't trying very hard at practicing them.
If I sound frustrated writing this review, it's because I'm frustrated at that woman. In fact, I skipped the last chapter which featured her "recipes" that helped her win her kids over to eating better. I skipped it because I didn't want to waste my time reading the recipes of some person who spent most of her life not appreciating food.
This book could have been shorter if it was edited better to cut down on the repetition. It seemed like every chapter contained at least a couple introduction pages about the family's situation in France and French culture. It gets pretty tiring reading the same thing over and over again.
While it was interesting to read about the differences in food culture between France and North America, I had no sympathy for the woman writing this book. It was her idea to uproot her family from Vancouver and move to the small village in rural France her husband grew up in despite his not wanting to return there. Then when she gets there, she becomes some whiny, complaining person who can't seem to adapt to being in the country of "her choice."
More specifically, she goes on for chapters about how hard it was to get her kids to eat the "French way" but I just thought she wasn't trying hard enough. Instead of educating her children about tasting things they may be scared of, she gives in to their crying and whining and pretty much let them choose what they eat for the better part of a year in France. Then she has some magical revelation (No shit, Sherlock) that changing her kids eating habits means she first has to change her bad habits of 1.) not rushing everyone through family meal times, 2.) hovering over her kids in a cloud of food anxiety, and 3.) being more open to trying new foods HERSELF. Seriously, this was a woman who had to have her (now) husband cut up her fish for her when dining with his parents for the first time because she didn't know how to eat fish??
It's not like there wasn't anything useful in the book. There were some useful things that I would probably want to do if I ever have kids like the "no snacking between meals" rule and the "you don't have to like it, but you do have to taste it" rule. It's just that even though this woman was writing about these things, she wasn't trying very hard at practicing them.
If I sound frustrated writing this review, it's because I'm frustrated at that woman. In fact, I skipped the last chapter which featured her "recipes" that helped her win her kids over to eating better. I skipped it because I didn't want to waste my time reading the recipes of some person who spent most of her life not appreciating food.