Small children can be very picky eaters. Even children who are exposed to a wide variety of foods sometimes go through phases when only one food will do, for breakfast, for lunch, and for dinner. Bread and Jam for Frances is the story of a winsome little badger who decides that only bread and jam will satisfy her appetite.

While her family enjoys a wide range of dishes-soft boiled eggs, breaded veal cutlets, and spaghetti and meatballs-Frances does not waver in her commitment to bread and jam. She loves bread and jam so much that she sings a song in its honor while skipping rope:

“Jam on biscuits, jam on toast,

Jam is the thing that I like most.

Jam is sticky, jam is sweet,

Jam is tasty, jam’s a treat-

Raspberry, strawberry, gooseberry, I’m very

FOND…OF…JAM!”

Eventually Frances snaps out of her carbohydrate centric phase, due to her mother´s ingenious strategy. Author Russell Hoban describes the lunches that Frances her classmate Albert enjoy in delightful detail. Albert “likes to have a good lunch:” cream cheese with cucumbers and tomatoes on rye, with a pickle and a hard-boiled egg (don’t forget the salt shaker!), a tangerine, grapes, a thermos full of milk, and “cup custard” for dessert (with spoon, of course). Frances’ mother packs her a good lunch as well: a thermos of cream of tomato soup, a lobster salad sandwich, an assortment of veggies and fruit, and vanilla pudding with chocolate sprinkles for dessert.

Doesn’t all that make you want to enjoy a good lunch with Frances, Albert, and your children? You can follow in the footsteps of these epicurean young badgers by recreating their lunches from the menu at epicurious.com. There are other menus designed around children’s literary classics on the site, including one on The Very Hungry Caterpillar (oh, what a feast indeed!). Are there other literary classics with which can you feast along? A little research and some creativity go a long way to make reading a feast for all the senses: sight, sound, touch, smell and taste!