Taking on School Food with ‘Lunch Wars’

My third-grade son often eats a school lunch. I feel like I have to defend the fact that I don’t pack him a lunch every day, but the food he gets at school is healthier, cheaper and, of course, more convenient than what I would send from home. Each year, my district implements more changes to make the menu more nutritious, and I couldn’t be happier with the lunches.

Read the last 5 Minutes for Books on The iConnected Parent.

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Amy Kalafa worked with Dr. Susan Rubin, the founder of Better School Food, to create ...

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5 Minutes for Books: Playground Dreams with ‘KaBOOM!’

I’m lucky to live in an area of northern Colorado that is family friendly. There are several large playgrounds with many amenities, and every school has a playground that’s open to the public. There is a lot of open space, perfect for a game of kickball or to throw a football around. 

Read the last 5 Minutes for Books on the art of running.

Not everyone is so lucky.  After Darell Hammond read about two children who died while playing in a car because they had nowhere else to go, he decided to build them a playground.  Fifteen ...

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5 Minutes for Books: Myth Busters

Professors of pediatrics and authors of Don’t Swallow Your Gum, Aaron Carroll and Rachel Vreeman have been featured on The Dr. Oz Show, CNN, in the New York Times and many other media outlets. Now, they follow the success of that myth-busting book with Don’t Cross Your Eyes…They’ll Get Stuck That Way!: And 75 Other Health Myths Debunked.

Read more lifestyle and parenting advice with 5 Minutes for Books. 

Here, Carroll and Vreeman use various studies to uncover a variety of health-related myths.  I found myself reading aloud to my husband almost every one, amazed to ...

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5 Minutes for Books: Audio Love for Mom

Mother’s Day is this weekend, and I recently listened to two audiobooks from Macmillan Audio that fit the day. If you’re looking for a last-minute gift for a special mom in your life, here are two good options.

“Motherhood is a kaleidoscopic subject,” Liane Hansen writes in the foreword of A Mother's Gift: An Inspiring Collection of This I Believe Essays Celebrating Motherhood with a sentence that perfectly captures the essence of both motherhood and the anthology. This edition, edited by NPR’s Jay Allison and Dan Gediman, contains 20 essays taken from the first two This ...

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