This week we bought a new book for Oscar – Oscar’s Lunch Box. Its a fantastic book about a little boy, called Oscar, who has food intolerances. Oscar gets upset when he starts school and discovers that the other kids have much more colourful and interesting lunch boxes than he does. He hates that he has food intolerances, and using the analogy of a racing car need a special formula, Oscar’s mum explains to him how to listen to his body and learn which foods are the best for him, and that everyone has their own special formula.
The book is written by Pam Houssenloge, who’s own son has food intolerances. You can get more details on her website, Well Connected Kids, where you can buy the book online ($19.95 plus postage) or find a local stockist. I found a review of this book in the latest Failsafe Newsletter, and bought it straight away. I’d been looking for something for Oscar to help him understand his intolerances as he has recently starting talking about it with us.
I thought the book was great, but its Oscar’s reaction that really counts. He was immediately engaged with it, discussing the story the whole way through. We talked about the foods Oscar in the book eats, many of them the same as our Oscar; he empathised with Oscar in the book crying and with food making him feel bad, and of course he loved the racing car. I was really surprised that he took to it so quickly. He read it the first time with his dad, then asked me to read it; when I sat down he said “this is my favourite book”. You can’t get a much better recommendation than that!
Even if you don’t have an Oscar like I do, I think Oscar’s Lunch Box is an excellent resource for all kids who have food intolerances, and for the people who care for them.
PS, this is an unsolicited, unpaid review.
The moment I saw this in the failsafe newsletter, I bought it too. It's so hard when you have a child with multiple food intolerances and allergies. And what could be more appealing to a little boy than an analogy about racing cars 🙂
what a great find!