Here are 100 books that The Wok fans have personally recommended if you like
The Wok.
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When my kids were toddlers, there was a Burger King in the neighborhood with an indoor playground. It was glorious. A random guy walked up to me while we were there. “How do you do it, you know, the whole Dad thing” he asked. "Well… you don’t necessarily need to do a whole lot. Mostly just show up. Stick around." Never mentioned that by this time, I’d written and/or illustrated at least a couple dozen children’s books. I asked my nine-year-old daughter how she’d describe me as a Dad. “Most people think you’re creative, but I think you’re pretty average.” That’s good enough for me.
At least in the US, once you become a new parent, people will invariably gift you this book, along with "Pat the Bunny", and a plastic giraffe toy. Why? Who knows. They just got all got really popular at some point and have remained so. For what it's worth, this is the most worthy of the three.
I’ve included it in this list mainly to call attention to just how profoundly bizarre it is. To some extent, because it's the second part of a 1940s trilogy set in a surreal universe of bunny people. I appreciate the eerie drawing style and palette throughout the series, but parts one and three are nothing special.
Although I can recall my indifference to this book as a kid, I'm a sucker for it now. Not sure if it's because of nostalgia, the way it taps into our collective unconscious or that scene from…
A beautiful anniversary edition of the classic bedtime story with shiny gold cover flourishes - the perfect gift for christenings and birthdays.
Featuring a look at the fascinating story behind the creation of one of the most famous children's books in the world, beloved by Michelle Obama and Neil Gaiman alike, as well as tips on how to get your child to sleep.
In a great green room a little bunny is tucked up snugly and safely in bed and is getting ready to say goodnight to all the familiar things in his room, one by one.
When my kids were toddlers, there was a Burger King in the neighborhood with an indoor playground. It was glorious. A random guy walked up to me while we were there. “How do you do it, you know, the whole Dad thing” he asked. "Well… you don’t necessarily need to do a whole lot. Mostly just show up. Stick around." Never mentioned that by this time, I’d written and/or illustrated at least a couple dozen children’s books. I asked my nine-year-old daughter how she’d describe me as a Dad. “Most people think you’re creative, but I think you’re pretty average.” That’s good enough for me.
This book does an amazing job of introducing kids to visual thinking and communication. Crucial skills in this day and age.
Bold lines and primary colors clearly demonstrate the basic principles of design and composition without pretense or jargon. After countless rereadings, my copy endured tape repairs and ultimately complete destruction at the hands of my daughter. You always hurt the ones you love. Highly recommended.
Design is all about the perception of size, shape, and color.
A fabulous and fun introduction to the concepts of design
A Book About Design: Complicated Doesn't Make It Good takes a most creative approach to introducing young (and not-so-young) readers to the fundamental elements of design. Using simple shapes, lines, and a sense of humor, this book explains why complicated doesn't make it good-and why that matters. Mark Gonyea opens up the world of design and makes it accessible to young artists and non-artists alike.
A Children's Book-of-the-Month Club Selection A JUNIOR LIBRARY GUILD SELECTION
When my kids were toddlers, there was a Burger King in the neighborhood with an indoor playground. It was glorious. A random guy walked up to me while we were there. “How do you do it, you know, the whole Dad thing” he asked. "Well… you don’t necessarily need to do a whole lot. Mostly just show up. Stick around." Never mentioned that by this time, I’d written and/or illustrated at least a couple dozen children’s books. I asked my nine-year-old daughter how she’d describe me as a Dad. “Most people think you’re creative, but I think you’re pretty average.” That’s good enough for me.
Despite the drawing style, this really isn’t a kid's book.
Another Dad friend of mine, also into comics, mentioned he was reading it to his daughter. She was into it. I’d had the series from my pre-parent days. The conversation inspired me to give it a try with my then 5-year-old son, a Thomas the Tank engine superfan. He was hooked instantly.
The entire series is about 2,800 pages, so it covered a lot of bedtime stories. An intricate, sprawling story, loosely based on the life of the Buddha. It hit me even harder on my second reading while occasionally fielding some pretty heavy questions from my son.
This is a masterpiece of historical fiction, philosophy, casual nudity, and general Japanese weirdness. Way better than anything ever read to me as a kid. Easily one of the best things I’ve read as an adult. And this is coming from a…
Osamu Tezuka's vaunted storytelling genius, consummate skill at visual expression, and warm humanity blossom fully in his eight-volume epic of Siddhartha's life and times. Tezuka evidences his profound grasp of the subject by contextualizing the Buddha's ideas; the emphasis is on movement, action, emotion, and conflict as the prince Siddhartha runs away from home, travels across India, and questions Hindu practices such as ascetic self-mutilation and caste oppression. Rather than recommend resignation and impassivity, Tezuka's Buddha predicates enlightenment upon recognizing the interconnectedness of life, having compassion for the suffering, and ordering one's life sensibly. Philosophical segments are threaded into interpersonal…
When my kids were toddlers, there was a Burger King in the neighborhood with an indoor playground. It was glorious. A random guy walked up to me while we were there. “How do you do it, you know, the whole Dad thing” he asked. "Well… you don’t necessarily need to do a whole lot. Mostly just show up. Stick around." Never mentioned that by this time, I’d written and/or illustrated at least a couple dozen children’s books. I asked my nine-year-old daughter how she’d describe me as a Dad. “Most people think you’re creative, but I think you’re pretty average.” That’s good enough for me.
I read this book a few years ago. Some of its essays really stuck with me. This is a popular science book, largely having to do with the limitations of popular science. I like to read anything that challenges my assumptions. Spending so much time in Dad mode, your brain can really atrophy.
My Dad was always interested in science. He never finished high school. In the pre-internet days, he subscribed to science magazines. He read instruction manuals cover to cover. I think he would’ve really enjoyed this book.
There is so much we don’t know. We tend to misinterpret what we do. Too often, we have good ideas and abandon them. This book serves as a reminder that creativity requires diligence and reflection alongside imagination.
At its core, I think these essays speak with indomitable optimism. Things could be better. My kids will grow up to be much more…
Over 150 of the world's leading scientists and thinkers offer their choice of the ideas, strategies and arguments that will help all of us understand our world, and its future, better. This title includes contributions from: Richard Dawkins, Stephen Pinker, Daniel Dennett, Clay Shirky, Daniel Goleman, Sam Harris, Lee Smolin, Matt Ridley, Mark Henderson, David Rowan, Sir Martin Rees, Craig Venter, Brian Eno, Jaron Lanier and David Brooks ...among others. With his organisation Edge.org, the literary agent and all-purpose intellectual impresario John Brockman has brought together the most influential thinkers of our age. Every year he sets them a question,…
My wife and I were at a red sauce joint in the West Village of Manhattan drinking a bit of wine when we posed the question: who invented all this? We knew Italian American food didn’t look all that much like the food we ate in Italy. Later, at home, I started Googling for answers. None were satisfactory. I read a few books before finding myself at the New York Public library sleuthing through JSTOR. After examining my notes, I said to myself, “oh, I guess I’m writing a book.”
Jennifer 8 Lee looks at the history of Chinese American food, but with an emphasis on restaurants and food production. For instance, I learned one of the leading fortune cookie manufacturers has a factory just a few blocks from where I live in Brooklyn, and the differences in low cost and fermented of soy sauce. Lee looks at modern Chinese American cuisine through a global lens showing the impact across continents, including exporting Chinese American favorites like fortune cookies back to China.
If you think McDonald's is the most ubiquitous restaurant experience in America, consider that there are more Chinese restaurants in America than McDonalds, Burger Kings, and Wendys combined. New York Times reporter and Chinese-American (or American-born Chinese). In her search, Jennifer 8 Lee traces the history of Chinese-American experience through the lens of the food. In a compelling blend of sociology and history, Jenny Lee exposes the indentured servitude Chinese restaurants expect from illegal immigrant chefs, investigates the relationship between Jews and Chinese food, and weaves a personal narrative about her own relationship with Chinese food. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles…
As a writer and child therapist, I believe in the importance of connecting with our families. Sometimes that means making sacrifices for our loved ones who need our support. When my parents moved to be near our family, we learned how to adapt to their changing needs. Like the books I choose, sometimes a grandparent moves in with you, sometimes you navigate them being grumpy, or other times you just listen to their wishes. But mostly, it’s just being there in the moment with a grandparent that opens our eyes, and heart, to something larger than ourselves.
If you know a grumpy grandpa, you’ll enjoy this one!
Daisy is thrilled her grandpa is visiting from China. While Daisy has many fun things planned, her grandpa is well… grumpy! He likes things a certain way and Daisy can’t dissuade him otherwise. (I can relate to that!) That is, until she discovers what he really likes and helps make him feel right at home.
A fabulous picture book that explores connection and fosters an understanding of others.
Daisy's Yeh-Yeh is visiting from China, and try as she might, Daisy can't get her grumpy grandpa to smile!
Daisy's Yeh-Yeh is visiting for the first time from China, and Daisy is so excited to meet him! She has big plans for all the fun they'll have together, like tea parties and snow angels, but when Yeh-Yeh arrives, Daisy finds him less jolly than she imagined. Throughout the week, she tries all sorts of things to get him past his grumpiness. Will she be able to make him smile before he goes home?
I have loved reading my whole life. So when I became a mom, I started reading to my kids pretty much as soon as they came home from the hospital. They absolutely love to have books read to them, and we have shelves full of picture books. My favorite picture books to read out loud are ones with eye-catching illustrations, witty stories that spark imagination or learning, and rhymes that flow rhythmically. As a bonus, if the characters lend themselves to fun voices, those are always winners. I hope you enjoy reading these books to your kids as much as I do.
I can’t think of this book without picturing my own little girl when she was 3 years old with pigtails sticking out, just like Amy Wu.
She and I read this over and over again to the point that she could quote the whole book. It is such a sweet story about family traditions and pushing through the challenge it can be for little hands to learn how to do something new.
The story is precious and the illustrations are delightful.
My wife and I were at a red sauce joint in the West Village of Manhattan drinking a bit of wine when we posed the question: who invented all this? We knew Italian American food didn’t look all that much like the food we ate in Italy. Later, at home, I started Googling for answers. None were satisfactory. I read a few books before finding myself at the New York Public library sleuthing through JSTOR. After examining my notes, I said to myself, “oh, I guess I’m writing a book.”
Chinese American food has a rich history, and Andrew Coe explores the arrival of the cuisine in America, how it adapts, and how it is popularized across the country. The book focuses on restaurant culture and recipes, and Coe explains the origins of many dishes like chop suey and how and when the dishes grew into mainstream success, part of a broader American cuisine. The way Coe discusses Chinese American food is similar to how I write about Italian American food in my book.
In 1784, passengers on the ship Empress of China became the first Americans to land in China, and the first to eat Chinese food. Today, the United States is home to more Chinese restaurants than any other ethnic cuisine. In this authoritative new history, author Andrew Coe traces the fascinating story of America's centuries-long encounter with Chinese food. CHOP SUEY tells how we went from believing that Chinese meals contained dogs and rats to making regular pilgrimages to the neighborhood chop suey parlor. From China, the book follows the story to the American West, where both Chinese and their food…
My name is Dawna Pitts. I am passionate about entertaining and always have been. I realized I actually have much to share from my experiences of entertaining for many years and living on different continents which made me write my book Entertaining is My Love Language. I wanted to inspire people to have more get-togethers in our homes build sweet, delicious memories, and understand home entertaining doesn’t always have to be proper and perfect and no need to be intimidated by foreign exotic food ingredients.
Everything this reality TV personality Lisa Vanderpump does looks beautiful, elegant, and expensive on TV. Of course, I wanted to see how she does that, that’s why I purchased this book.
I was pleasantly surprised by how honestly she described so many things she does as “smoke and mirrors” in her words. From owning many restaurants in different countries, she has a wide variety of knowledge on hosting people. She shared many tips on how to make beautiful presentations of food and table settings effortlessly such as decorating store-bought plain cake to make it look like a custom-ordered cake from a high-end cake shop.
Her dry sense of British humor really adds fun to reading this book as well. The recipes in this book are mainly from chefs who worked for her restaurants, I was really impressed when I tested them out but easy enough for home cooks like me…
Lisa Vanderpump has become the breakout star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Her unique mix of sparkling glamour and down-to-earth style has appealed to thousands of fans. On the show, viewers can see her hosting dinner parties and running her popular Beverly Hills restaurant Villa Blanca with what can best be termed"easy elegance." Now Lisa shares her tips and tricks for creating the perfect gathering: whether you're hosting a cozy winter dinner for six, throwing a poolside BBQ, or just hanging out with your closest friends, Lisa has just the menu and entertaining hints that will make it…
I am a rabbi and educator who lives in the midst of a large Jewish community and a large Muslim community. But up until about 10 or so years ago, I had no Muslim friends. My wife and I set out to change that. (She formed the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom and I benefited as a plus one.) I am also the author of nearly 100 books, a growing number of which are for children and some focus on the relationship between Muslims and Jews.
There are so few young adult novels that demonstrate positive relationships between Muslim kids and Jewish kids. This one succeeds masterfully.
The main characters in the story come from very different backgrounds and seem to share little in common. Their friendship grows slowly, and eventually they learn to trust one another. This story shows both the risks and rewards of such a friendship. With taking risks, there can be no reward.
A timely, accessible, and beautifully written story exploring themes of food, friendship, family and what it means to belong, featuring sixth graders Sara, a Pakistani American, and Elizabeth, a white, Jewish girl taking a South Asian cooking class taught by Sara’s mom.
Sixth graders Sara and Elizabeth could not be more different. Sara is at a new school that is completely unlike the small Islamic school she used to attend. Elizabeth has her own problems: her British mum has been struggling with depression.
The girls meet in an after-school South Asian cooking class, which Elizabeth takes because her mom has…
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