Best-selling authors Bret Nicholaus and Tom McGrath have collaborated to create The Meal Box: Fun Questions and Family Tips to Get Mealtime Conversations Cookin’ (978-0-829-42813-1, $9.95, Loyola Press), which aims to help parents improve the quality of their family dinnertime conversations.

To be released next month, The Meal Box contains 54 cards, each one featuring a creative question intended to get parents and children ages 6 to 16 talking. The reverse side of each card features a quick “Food for Family Thought” tip, which is designed to help families apply the question to their everyday experiences while reminding them of the sometimes subtle but significant role faith plays in their lives. The card also features a short closing prayer.

One card asks participants to name five signs that spring has arrived in the area where they live, with the flip side encouraging them to think of ways in which they can renew their own spirits, and closing with a prayer thanking God for physical and spiritual rejuvenation. Another card in the set asks, “If you could change one thing about the way your favorite holiday is celebrated, what would you change?”

Nicholaus is the author of many question books, including the “KidChat” series, while McGrath is former executive editor of U.S. Catholic and wrote Raising Faith-Filled Kids. The co-writers have introduced The Meal Box in a short video posted on YouTube that captures one family using the cards and telling how the cards helped stimulate conversation and thought.

To order The Meal Box, call 800-621-1008, or go to www.loyolapress.com.

Patricia Mitchell is editorial director for The Word Among Us.

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