Welcome back! Grace and Alvina give some holiday gift recommendations for readers, authors, illustrators, kids, and more!

A High Five Books exclusive! High Five Books (Grace’s local indie bookstore) paired a signed copy of Grace Lin's New York Times-bestselling book Chinese Menu with:

A limited edition signed print: "My Chinese Takeout Order"

Two recipe cards

Please note: This Print Pack no longer comes with a custom fortune cookie or notecard.

How have you been?

A school visit has been cancelled but Grace hasn’t learned why yet. Needless to say, in this day and age, she’s very suspicious. Grace had a wonderful mother-daughter trip with Hazel in Maine. Grace heads to NCTE on Friday! At work, Little Brown started a “Hallway Happy Hour” where different different divisions host different departments.

Annual Gift Guide!

Grace three gift suggestions for authors and illustrators and Alvina will give three suggestions for editors or readers.

For starters, Grace’s books! Chinese Menu is a fantastic gift with a door dash card so they can order chinese food! Grace’s other suggestion is pairing her book, Once Upon a Book with a rabbit stuffy. You can also do that with A Big Mooncake for Little Star!

Grace’s other gift suggestions:

Gifting a portrait with a good photographer!

Darkboard iPad stand from Astropad
A tiny shelf where you can get any books you want on it. Found on Etsy “BooksByBritton”!

Alvina’s gift suggestions:

BOWIO book light
Literary scarfs from storiarts.com
A fancy hourglass sand timer

Kids recommendations:

Alvina:

Amuseables from Jellycat.com!
Subscription boxes such as Universal Yums and Kiwi Crate!
Kid games from our era when we were kids! (Hungry Hippos, Operation, etc..!)

Grace:

Breathing Buddha! https://mindsightnow.com/products/mindsight-breathing-buddha-mindful-meditation-tool
Little Dumpling Booties (pair with her board book Dim Sum for Everyone!)
Making jewelry and charms from Charm it!

Wild Card gift ideas!

Grace:

The Moromi Soy Sauce gift set! Founded by Debbi Michiko Florence and her husband. Check it out!

Alvina:

Socks Alvina saw on Tik Tok called Sock Buddies!

Gratefuls:

Grace is grateful that Hazel got A’s on her report card! Chinese Menu was named Book Pages one of the best book of 2023, and Once Upon a Book was also named “must read of 2023”! Alvnia is so grateful for her new work computer!

THANK YOU!

Thank you to Hachette Audio, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, and Alex at Pacyworks Studio for producing and editing this podcast. Be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell a friend about us. (Use the hashtag #bookfriendsforever.)

You can find Alvina @Planetalvina on Twitter and TikTok and @Alvinaling on Instagram and Threads, @alvinaling on BlueSky

You can find Grace @Pacylin on Instagram and Threads, @authorgracelin on Facebook, @gracelinauthor on TikTok, and @authorgracelin on BlueSky Social!

Please keep tagging and messaging us on social media using the hashtag #bookfriendsforever! OR email us at bookfriendsforever@gmail.com! Please let us know if you have any topic ideas!