Our Review of Paleo Pals: Jimmy and the Carrot Rocket Ship

The family of Victory Belt books is growing!

Sarah Fragoso from Everyday Paleo is releasing two children’s books. The first is a story about the new paleo superheroes, the Paleo Pals children’s story, on February 14th and then a companion Paleo Pals recipe book in May.

Our book, Eat Like a Dinosaur, is also a Victory Belt children’s book (being released between Sarah’s two books, on March 20th). Since our book is finished and at the printer, and we’ve now read Paleo Pals: Jimmy and the Carrot Rocket Ship, we feel prepared to finally answer the question we’ve heard more than a few times, How are the books different? This is in no way comprehensive, and obviously reflects our own interpretation – but I hope it’ll help you understand why and how there can be a place for both in your home.

Eat Like a Dinosaur:

1. Is based on our family’s story of healing our bodies with “nutritional therapy” (i.e. eating foods available in nature, plants & meat – just like dinosaurs). The book’s target audience is preschool and elementary school kids, but it’s been previewed and enjoyed by toddlers, pre-teens and adults.
2. Is not a specifically Paleo book – all recipes are grain-, dairy-, legume- and refined sugar-free, but the book is written with the idea that families may be following a variety of “diets” for a variety of reasons (allergies, GFCF, WAPF, primal, etc.) so that a child with a gluten intolerance or dairy allergy can relate to the story, recipes, etc.
3. Has 288 pages, including over 100 recipes. It also has a relatively short illustrated kids’ story on how eating differently can be fun, a section on how to succeed as a parent, how to make lunches without grains and chapters for “projects” to do with your kids (like gardening and shopping yard sales). Visit our 31 page online flipbook for the full table of contents and sample pages & recipes.

Paleo Pals: Jimmy and the Carrot Rocket Ship:

1. This fictional children’s story is about a group of superhero siblings who are called to “alert” that a young boy is reluctant to start eating paleo. The superheroes take him on a tour of paleo guiding principals (farms and food from the earth, the library to learn about gut health, etc.) and discuss why he should eat that way. The illustrations are evocative and colorful; the boys picked out a couple of favorite pages because the image of food in a factory was really intriguing to them.
2. It’s a longer illustrated kids story, probably about 50 pages or so (no page numbers) with quite a lof of information and words. It took us two sessions to get through reading it, but both the boys wanted to read the story and were excited about the idea of paleo superheros. The story gives good information on what paleo food is vs. standard American diet food and why “healthy paleo food” is good for little, growing bodies in a way they were able to understand.
3. It includes about a dozen recipes at the end, including two our boys wanted to try – Courageous Coconut Cookies and Banana Pancakes. The companion recipe book is coming out in May and will have more recipes, snack ideas and lunches.

Paleo Pals has lots of references to “healthy paleo foods” and how paleo is the way to make yourself the strongest and healthiest you can be, a “super” you. We certainly can identify with that philosophy!  If you, as a parent, are encountering resistance from your children about diet change and you intend to implement a paleo-type diet, this book is here to help you. It is marketed with the age range of 4-8 years old. Finn, nearly 4, and Cole, 6 1/2, fall right into that range. It was easy and interesting enough for Finn to follow, but not so juvenile that Cole rejected it – they were the perfect audience. Cole (at about a 2nd or 3rd grade reading level) was able to read a page or two, but with quite a few big words he asked me to read it instead.

Since our boys are paleo, it was really exciting for them to actually see it in a book written for them. We don’t really use the term at home, we choose to use phrases like “junk food” vs. “real food” or “gluten-free and dairy-free” because it’s what teachers and waitresses can relate to – but the boys clearly knew this book was written for them and were very excited about it. When they saw that there were recipes in the back, they were immediately exciting knowing they would be recipes they could have. They asked to make Courageous Coconut Cookies. In the morning! But since they were made with fruit and coconut, they were lazy Sunday morning approved. These cookies were simple enough for the boys to help at every step, but were good enough that they were rock-paper-scissoring for who got the last one!

In making the cookies, we did get a little confused on what to do with the batter at the end, so we decided to try baking half and refrigerating the other half. Turns out they are definitely for chilling, they turned out like a yummy LaraBar that way!  I think they’ll become a staple in our house, since we’re always looking for more ways to incorporate coconut into our boys’ bellies. Did you know coconut helps heal the gut, essential for little bellies recovering from years of gluten-dense eating?

Thanks to Sarah Fragoso from Everyday Paleo for letting us preview Paleo Pals: Jimmy and the Carrot Rocket Ship. Now that we’ve seen how exciting a real food book can be for kids, we can’t wait to see Eat Like a Dinosaur get into everyone’s hands!  There can never be enough tools to teach our kids that making their own healthy foods is not only good for them, but fun too ♥