School Lunch

Children's Literature

Harriet, the overworked cook at Lincoln School, takes a vacation. A vacation from preparing healthy food for all the students—and a vacation from trying to please all the kids by making lunches they will all eat without complaint. She flies off to an island paradise where she happily lounges by the ocean and relaxes in a hammock under palm trees. Meanwhile, back at the school, the kids are glad that Harriet is gone, especially when her substitute is Al from the diner. He makes them all the greasy hamburgers they can eat until the kids finally cannot stand the smell and the sloppiness any longer. Other replacements follow but, as the kids realize after a short time, not one of them makes lunch like Harriet. The kids send Harriet letters and e-mails, but she is loathe to leave her paradise. Does Harriet leave the good life to dash to the rescue? All doubts disappear when she gets a telegram telling her the kids are not healthy and begging her to come back. Kids will enjoy the busy and quirky illustrations. 2005, Holiday House, Ages 6 to 9.
—Carolyn Mott Ford

School Library Journal

K-Gr 2-Harriet, the cook at Lincoln School, is feeling tired and unappreciated. None of the children enjoy the healthy lunches she exhausts herself preparing and now, "she needed a vacation bad!" After she departs for a tropical paradise, Principal Fitz hires a series of substitutes, including a hash slinger who provides greasy food complete with flies, a French chef whose rich dishes (all flamb ) make the children fat, and a witch who creates cupcakes that bite back. Various teachers attempt to run the kitchen with equally disastrous results. The children write to Harriet imploring her to return, but their pleas fall on deaf ears until the principal sends a telegram stating that the children are no longer healthy. Harriet returns, and from that lunch on, "they all ate healthy foods for the rest of their long and happy lives." The plot is mildly amusing, although the joke wears thin rather quickly. The illustrations, done in indelible ink and Luma Dyes, are bright and cheerful and amplify the silliness of the situation. Kathryn Lasky's Lunch Bunnies (Little, Brown, 1996) addresses the cafeteria scenario with humor and less chaos. An additional purchase for larger collections.-Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A marvelously cute and clever look at school lunches features Harriet, the school cook who is tired out from trying to please all the kids, so she takes a vacation. However, things are not a vacation back at Lincoln School, where Mr. Fitz, the principal, hires one substitute chef after another. This one cooks only greasy foods, that one's food is too rich and fattening, a third found another job and the final one was a witch who served biting cupcakes. The teachers are not any better when their turns come to cook. Throughout, the students send Harriet letters and pictures they have drawn telling her about the cooks and the awful food. But all their pleas fail to roust Harriet from her tropical paradise until a telegram arrives saying the kids are not healthy. This sends her scrambling back to the school, where she arrives in the nick of time. Kelley's illustrations are truly a stitch-the facial expressions are right-on, and the students' drawings of their new lunches are hysterical. Unfortunately, the cover does not do the interior justice. It's hard to say whether this will turn readers on or off school lunches, but worth a laugh nonetheless. (Picture book. 4-10)