cover image Eating for A's: A Delicious 12-Week Nutrition Plan to Improve Your Child's Academic and Athletic Performance

Eating for A's: A Delicious 12-Week Nutrition Plan to Improve Your Child's Academic and Athletic Performance

Alexander Schauss. Pocket Books, $9 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-671-72814-4

This book is barely under way when Schauss ( Nutrition and Behavior) , Barbara Meyer ( C o oking for a Crowd Naturally ) and Arnold Meyer (former director of media for the Office of School Food and Nutrition Services for New York City's Board of Education) trot out the small print: not all children can be A students, but they can be ``nurtured . . . to get an A for best effortital in text .'' Maybe so, but this guide to school-age power eating had best come packed with its own chef: it depends on convincing parents to prepare during week seven, for example, oyster chowder, chicken soup, stuffed turkey, vegetarian burgers (made with rice, cashews and sunflower seeds), quinoa (a grain) with buckwheat, taboule, and pasta with clam sauce. But then, parents who follow this book's advice and ``sneak'' edible seaweed into their kids' dinner probably know no bounds. These menus are assembled to give children the 12 vitamins and minerals the authors call ``learning nutrients.'' p. 21-23 Supporting text covers food handling, exercise, nutrition and tactics for nudging children through the program. However, most of this information can be found elsewhere in less achievement-oriented volumes. (Sept.)