B.C. academic challenges narrative on food insecurity in Canada by writing children’s novel

Seven years ago, Jennifer Black watched her young children, who were three years old and five years old at the time, participate in several food bank drives organized by their school. These collections were intended to teach students about community outreach and the importance of helping those less privileged than themselves.While Prof. Black, an associate professor of food, nutrition and health at the University of British Columbia, valued the hard work her children, their classmates and teachers put into helping food banks, she couldn’t help but feel troubled about how food banks have been relied upon as a permanent solution to food insecurity and hunger and the lack of solutions to this entrenched issue. She also wanted children to be able to question how hunger and poverty can be avoided.