SUPER SUPPER THROWDOWN

The characters from the PBS Kids’ show Fizzy’s Lunch Lab teach kids about the importance of good nutrition.

Professor Fizzy, the master of healthy eating, takes on Fast Food Freddy, greasy food expert. The challenge? The titular cook-off: Each chef will design a meal that three kids will then taste test. While Fizzy works with Avril and Henry, teaching them about the Food Plate, shopping the U at the grocery store and checking labels for nutritional information, Freddy does the opposite; his plate is divided into salty, sweet, greasy and fatty, and he shops the freezer section. The lunch labbers take readers through planning a meal, introducing kitchen safety tips and explaining how to eat a rainbow (of fruits and veggies, not jelly beans, Freddy). Throughout, Sully the Cell interjects to explain how the right foods are used to fuel the body, and Cpl. Cup provides the recipes that help Fizzy win the cook-off: Green Salad with Lime Dressing, Veggilicious Hoagie with Groovy Guacamole, Tortilla Chips and Berry Banana Fro-Yo. With asides about protein, fiber, fats and calcium, Fizzy covers all the bases, and kids can even get some tips on dinner conversation starters and how to set the table. The brightly colored digital illustrations match the TV show to a T, inelegantly making the leap to the page.

Better than many at explaining the hows and whys of healthy eating but still a TV show on paper.