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

Narrated by: Cris Dukehart

French Kids Eat Everything is a wonderfully wry account of how Karen Le Billon was able to alter her children’s deep-rooted, decidedly unhealthy North American eating habits while they were all living in France.

At once a memoir, a cookbook, a how-to handbook, and a delightful exploration of how the French manage to feed children without endless battles and struggles with pickiness, French Kids Eat Everything features recipes, practical tips, and ten easy-to-follow rules for raising happy and healthy young eaters—a sort of French Women Don’t Get Fat meets Food Rules.

Required Reading!!

Extremely engaging! It is highly insightful on not only kids and picky eating, but also a close analysis of North American culture and their relationship with food through the lens of an unsuspecting nation, not to mention a compelling family story spread across two continents. 10/10 recommend to parents, parents to be, and parents never to be. This book is as important for rearing the next generation as it is for any North American.

It Starts From The Top

This was a fascinating treatis on the French versus North American approach to food and family. Although the author is focused on her children's eating habits, I felt that the challenges stemmed from the authors limited palate, maladaptive habits and cultural anxieties. I commend her for the extensive research and her tenacity. However, at times her intransigence to change and basic palate seemed to infect her children. I guess that might just reflect how hard change or growth can be. It was also sad that she opted to move her family back to Canada after 1 year. The French experience seemed a much healthier and balanced way to raise a family.

A similar book that I would HIGHLY recommend is "Bringing Up Bebe".

I wish I had read this sooner

This book answers so many questions about the way I was raised and in turn how I have raised my child. My wife and I are picky eaters so of course our child would be too. We have a bad good culture in our country that pushes snacking and other bad habits. Before you know it you are teaching your children these same bad habits. This book does a good job of identifying those bad habits and reasonable solutions.

Enjoyable book!

I enjoyed this book very much. Fun, informative, thought-provoking and great narration. I can't wait to put many of these traditional yet enjoyable "food rules" into my family's routine.

An interesting read

I enjoyed the overall story and premise although I agree with other reviewers that the authors own prejudices (and lack of general enthusiasm for food) got in her and her family's way more than her children being "north american." That said, I did laugh out loud at one or two moments and walked away considering how I'd like to present my infant son with new foods.

The one thing I really struggled with in this book was the French accents. The narrator is 90% of the time great, but almost all the French accents are delivered in a Julia Child-esque pitchy accent while her husband's accent wanders from French to transylvanian in turns. It got a bit distracting and sometimes I felt the need to pause and redo the line myself, outloud in the most stereotypical French accent I could just to "correct" the delivery and focus on the following text.

Great Book, Bad Narrator

Good:
This book was so incredibly helpful as we’re starting to try to diversify our toddler’s diet. The French way of associating meals and food with positive things and a festive environment takes so much stress out of mealtime! It was also nice to feel like I could give myself permission to relax if my son doesn’t eat something the first or second time. I feel much calmer around food now. I tried some of her recipes on my toddler with varying success, but my husband and I love the new tastes and have started having family meals, which has honestly had the secondary benefit of strengthening our marriage bond as well, as we were often eating in front of the TV after our son went to bed.

Bad:
Good grief, this narrator is bad! Her tone is sharp and has a weird air of snobbery that makes this a tough listen. Her French is terrible, which is understandable considering she’s not a native speaker, but you’d think they could have written the phrases out phonetically for her. Someone should also let her know how to pronounce the word “anecdote.” Hearing her say “antic-dote” like 14x made me roll my eyes and question whether any of these recordings pass through the ears of an editor.

It is a quick listen, be aware of the narrators terrible French impersonation

A nice memoir. There is sufficient anecdotal information to give you a good start on how to change your behaviors with your children and get them to start focusing on their food. The narrator, however, was very frustrating. The accents she did verged on Transylvania and at one point a character sounded Bengali. if you can ignore all that nonsense it’s a pretty good magnifying glass on the good eating habits of the French.

Good story but terrible terrible French

Just as a lot of people have mentioned, the reader has the worst French accent! Her efforts to speak “French” sometimes comes off sounding Indian. Besides that, great information and great story.

Pretty Good

Extremely eye opening and informative although the story can be a little boring at times

yum

a great way to get ideas or understand more about picky eaters and food