Notable: Kids' meals

Notable

Kids' meals

Three new books take very different looks at the ways food can shape our childhoods.

Blood, Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef (Random House) by Gabrielle Hamilton, acclaimed chef of Prune in New York, is a compelling memoir of a life in kitchens, beginning with her adored mother's; now in paperback.

The Great American Cereal Book: How Breakfast Got Its Crunch (Abrams Image) by Marty Gitlin and Topher Ellis is a crisply colorful history of a favorite kids' food that became a pop culture icon, with tasty factoids plus images of 350 cereal boxes, vintage ads and more. Remember Crispy Critters?

Julia's Child (Plume) by Sarah Pinneo is a comic novel about a "mompreneur" who starts a company that makes organic meals for toddlers in Park Slope, the trendy Brooklyn neighborhood where "even the playdough is whole grain."

Colette Bancroft, Times book editor