Review: Julia's Child

Summary: A delectable comedy for every woman who's ever wondered if buying that six-dollar box of organic crackers makes her a hero or a sucker. 

Julia Bailey is a mompreneur with too many principles and too little time. Her fledgling company, Julia's Child, makes organic toddler meals like Gentle Lentil and Give Peas a Chance. But turning a profit while saving the world proves tricky as Julia must face a ninety-two-pound TV diva, an ill-timed protest rally, and a room full of one hundred lactating breasts. Will she get her big break before her family reaches the breaking point? In the end, it is a story about motherhood's choices: organic versus local, paper versus plastic, staying at home versus risking it all. 

A cookbook author's hilarious fiction debut, Julia's Child will have foodies and all-natural mamas alike laughing, cheering, and asking for more. -- Plume

JULIA'S CHILD by Sarah Pinneo is chick lit for the modern mom set -- is that mom lit? It's a cute novel written by a former cookbook author that tells the story of Julia, a progressive mother of two who starts a business making organic meals for picky toddlers. Julia is able to balance her career and motherhood thanks to a nanny and an innovative business partner; however, when her products gets featured on a morning television show, the demand for them goes through the roof. Julia can barely keep up and is at wits end trying to "do it all." So when an offer comes from a major food conglomerate to buy her company, Julia has to do some serious soul-searching about her personal and professional life.

I thought JULIA'S CHILD was a fun read and was definitely worth a few hours of entertainment. I got quite a few laughs at the expense of young moms and their desire to protect their kids from... well everything. I appreciated that the story was humorous (and some of it was even tongue-in-cheek), but I also liked that there were some more serious issues addressed in the story too. Julia, as a mompreneur, faced many of the same issues that working moms everywhere have to deal with on a daily basis. She had to find time for her business, time for her kids, and even time for her husband. She also had to assess her life and make some decisions about her priorities. I have a feeling that the working moms reading this right now are totally nodding!

Besides dealing with so many of the working mom dilemmas, JULIA'S CHILD also discusses some other timely (or should I say trendy?) topics. There are discussions and side stories about the benefits of organic food and farming, paper vs. plastic, recycling, support for local stores, television time for kids, and a few more. Like many of you, I know many of my friends and I are concerned with these issues; and I even learned a few things while reading this book.

Another thing I enjoyed about JULIA'S CHILD were all of the food references. You could definitely tell that the author is someone who is very familiar with food and cooking. There were also a few of Julia's recipes included throughout the story which pleased me since there were so many descriptions of the tasty toddler tidbits. My kids are well past the ages to eat these types of food (and poor Booking Son wouldn't be able to find anything that he isn't allergic to), but I still enjoyed seeing the creativity involved in making these healthy items. In fact, I think many young moms would benefit from buying this novel for the recipes alone.

JULIA'S CHILD would make a fun book club pick -- especially if your group is made up of moms with young children. This novel would have been perfect about 10 years ago when my group first started and we all had babies and preschool age children. There are so many interesting things to discuss and this reading guide will help get your discussion started. Some of the topics you might want to explore include motherhood, career choices, sacrifice, parenting styles, big business, and staying true to one's self. It also might be cute to make some of the recipes in the book to bring to the meeting.

I thought JULIA'S CHILD was a cute book and I think most moms will agree.

Thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy of this novel.

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