Recipe for success: Involve the kids

If the kids haven't started to complain about the food in the school cafeteria or the lunches you're packing, don't worry. They probably soon will.

In "The Family Kitchen" by Debra Ponzek (Clarkson Potter, $25) are 125 recipes to break the monotony — many of which the kids can help you make. The chapter headings are a bit unconventional. There's "breakfast," then there's "breakfast in bed." There's "desserts" and also "bake sales." You'll find "snow days" and "lazy winter weekends."

But get past the cute titles and you'll find some kid-friendly favorites, such as smoothies, pasta and burgers — many with a twist. The turtle brownies are too messy for the lunchbox and won't earn any nutrition points, but they are a decadent treat both the kids and grown-ups will enjoy.

More healthful and more in keeping with the book's theme of kid participation is the Curried Chicken Salad With Apples and Currants. The author wisely notes that not all kids will like the curry and advises introducing them to it gradually.

I used a teaspoon rather than a tablespoon of curry in the recipe I made, and both my kids liked it.

"Gimme Five" by Nicola Graimes (North Atlantic Books, $16.95) comes with a pullout calendar and vegetable stickers to help entice young ones to eat the recommended five fruits and vegetables a day.

It includes 80 recipes organized by fruit or vegetable, as well as numerous suggestions for increasing produce in the diet. There's even advice for how to grow your own alfalfa sprouts.

Some recipes, such as the chocolate cherry sundae made with chocolate muffins, whipped cream and fresh cherries, are more tempting than others, including the broccoli and corn fritters that my kids refused to eat.

Take the title of "Lunch Lessons" by Ann Cooper and Lisa M. Holmes (Collins, $22.95) literally. Most of this book is devoted to treatises on the poor state of children's nutrition in the United States, the dangers posed by junk-food marketing and the importance of local organic foods.

More than halfway into the book, you'll come to the recipes, which are healthful, although not especially kid-friendly. It's one thing to entice the kids with the apple-nut bars and quite another to offer brown rice and tofu salad.

Some readers will find the shrill tone of the book too annoying to bother with, while others will be roused to take action to ensure the food their children are eating is healthful. Others may just turn to the recipes, which come with nutritional information.