If you’re a busy parent who can barely find the time to throw together a PB&J sandwich for your child’s lunchbox, prepare to be blown away by the edible works of art in this book.

All across Japan, parents are engaging in a unique hobby and coming up with novel and artistic ways to bring attention to their children's lunch boxes. Using lunch ingredients, these creative parents are turning out extraordinary works of art, designed to be eaten by their children at lunchtime. And what better way to make children eat than to turn their midday meals into a cartoon?

Author Christopher D Salyers, who lived in Japan for an extended period, documents the very real phenomenon of crafting food into visually creative and appealing forms, such as Pikachu, Daraemon and Cinderella. For the ambitious who want to give making o-bento a go, how-to guides and articles by designers and chefs accompany lots of beautiful full color photographs, along with artist commentary about the reasons, inspirations and ingredients used for their edible designs.