Little Bento: 32 Irresistible Bento Box Lunches for Kids

I absolutely love this book - I have used it every week since my son switched to a Montessori school and I had to start packing him a daily lunch. My initial thought was panic--what the heck am I going to pack my [then] almost 18-month old?? Enter... this book. This book has saved me. Great ideas, great recipes--even my husband and I enjoy the food! And Michele Olivier is a great author too--she is funny and realistic, and appropriately strives to make food healthy, attractive, and enjoyable for kiddos. My son is now 2, and I'm still trying new things from the book. I expect we'll be able to venture and try additional recipes once he is a little older, but there are plenty of options for a kiddo his age.We are also expecting our second babe in a few months, and I have already purchased Michele Olivier's other book, geared more toward baby and toddler food. Can't wait to try those out when our baby is old enough for solids!

I purchased Little Foodie earlier this year and loved it, so I decided to order Little Bento. One of the things I love about this book (and Little Foodie) is that it's not preachy. If you can get organic cool, if not THAT'S OK. The author never condemns or judges. Michele Olivier just wants to help make simple, and healthy meals for your kids. I also like that she explains how to turn some of these meals into complete meals for the entire family or offers alternate meals if you don't want to make a certain meal. She also uses food children eat. I can't tell you how many sites I've been to telling me to go and get ethically sourced spirulina from the mountains of Ecuador or whatever else foolishness for a CHILD to eat. As with any cookbook, some things I'm probably not going to try because they appear to be a bit time consuming, but those recipes are very rare. The majority of the Bento lunches are quick and easy and most can be eaten throughout the week. The book is fun and relatable and offers great new ideas for lunch and/or dinner for the kids; or in my case goddaughter.

There are some great recipes in here. I especially love how simple some of them are and how they'll encourage my kid to try new foods without going too far out of her comfort zone! One thing I felt was missing, however, was serving sizes. None of the recipes provide serving sizes, so it's hard to know if you need to adjust the recipe to make the amount you want. I found that very frustrating when trying some recipes for the first time.

I bought this as a gift and they can’t wait to use it. They said, “this is great, I needed this in my life to help make packing lunches easier and to give me new ideas.” Its has nice pictures and great ideas.

Good ideas, but a lot of sugary items I wasn't expecting - one meal suggestion of peanut butter and jelly skewers with blackberries and chocolate chip cookies (albeit whole wheat), fruit salad, and homemade cajun chex mix on the side. Another meal is coconut rice with snap peas and edamame with strawberries, pomegranate seeds, and chocolate haystacks on the side. With either of these suggestions and others, my child would be bouncing off the walls. I do like some of the recipes to make your own nut butter and each recipe has storage suggestions and dietary specifics (vegan, nut free, gf, etc.). I also appreciate the color balanced for each meal. Just wish there were less sugary suggestions!

My daughter is starting junior high this week and while I could come up with healthy lunch ideas, I already have to keep track of too many things in my brain. Enter this book, it reduces the mental load and makes it easy for us to work together to make lunches she'll actually enjoy AND that will nourish her. We did a lot of prep work over the weekend and she's already excited about her lunches for the week. Bonus is that everything looks delicious for adults too so mom, dad, and pre-teen will all be eating the same healthy lunch. Win! (FYI, dad helped too and he's just as excited about his new lunch menu as the kiddo!)

I bought this book because I loved Baby Foodie for my infant and wanted to see if this would be just as good for my school-ager. It did not disappoint. This book has been great for helping my come up with creative and easy ideas for school lunches. Most of the recipes presented are easy to make or pull together quickly, especially with a little prep time over the weekend. The fact that there are pictures of every single recipe is an added bonus. It is so wonderful to be able to actually see the finished product, and it makes it much, much easier to find recipes. Some of ideas in this book, like quesadillas, are things I never would have come up with on my own, but are so simple that once I saw them in the books, I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it before! Others, like meatballs, are things I never would have put in lunches, but once I saw how simple they are to make, they've become staples. Now, some of these ideas won't work for every child. Kudos to the author for getting her kids to eat so much salad; mine won't. But the vast majority of these are kid friendly, healthy, and easy, which is an A+ in my world.

This book starts at the very beginning for you laying out different bento container options with pros and cons. Then it gets into recipes by season. I LOVE this book and plan to use it for when my kiddos have their own bento boxes for school lunches. I use it for now just to get some recipe ideas for my toddlers’ lunch. I’m impressed with how broken down and descriptive this book is! If you need help with lunch ideas for your kiddos, get this book!