Wrapped With Love: Ashley Lam on Grandma, Wontons, and AAPI Heritage
Reading With Your Kids Podcast
Release Date: 05/08/2026
Wrapped With Love: Ashley Lam on Grandma, Wontons, and AAPI Heritage
Reading With Your Kids Podcast
In this inspiring episode of Reading With Your Kids, host Jed Doherty welcomes debut picture book author and Wall Street executive Ashley Lam, here to celebrate her new children’s book “Wrapped With Love: Wonton Noodle Day With Grandma.” Ashley shares how the story was inspired by watching her young daughter cook wontons with her grandmother during COVID. Those long days in the kitchen became a powerful reminder of intergenerational love, AAPI family traditions, and the importance of slowing down in a “go, go, go” world. She talks about how food is her mother’s love language, and...
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It’s Okay to Feel: Shannon Stocker on Boys, Big Emotions, and The Roach King of Raleigh
Reading With Your Kids Podcast
In this powerful episode of Reading With Your Kids, Jed welcomes back Shannon Stocker, author of the new YA novel The Roach King of Raleigh, a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. Shannon shares the deeply personal inspiration behind Quill, a high school sophomore who’s juggling a painful mix of family addiction, financial hardship, sibling tension, and crushing loneliness. To help his struggling family, Quill starts breeding dubia roaches to feed his bearded dragon and sell to a local pet store – and those thousands of hidden insects become a vivid metaphor for the dark, buried...
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Small Acts, Big Ripples: Lin Oliver on Kindness, Kid Power, and SCBWI
Reading With Your Kids Podcast
In this episode of Reading With Your Kids, Jed welcomes legendary author, producer, and SCBWI co‑founder Lin Oliver to celebrate her new middle grade novel, The After School Kindness Crew: Pooch on the Loose, co‑written with Goldie Hawn. Lin shares how Goldie’s MindUP foundation and its focus on mindfulness, brain science, and helping kids self‑regulate inspired the series, which follows three “outlier” kids—Mia, River, and Tony—who secretly perform acts of kindness at school and in their community. Lin explains why she chose neurodiverse and artsy, non‑“typical” kids as...
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Listen to the Girls: Chrystal D. Giles on Protecting and Empowering Kids
Reading With Your Kids Podcast
In this powerful and heartfelt episode of Reading With Your Kids, we welcome Chrystal D. Giles to talk about her new middle grade novel, “Listen to the Girls.” Chrystal introduces us to Calla, a seventh grader whose carefree start to summer is shaken when rumors surface about her favorite teacher’s inappropriate behavior with students. The story follows Calla as she navigates confusion, fear, and uncertainty, learning how to sort through information, trust her feelings, and—most importantly—listen to the girls who are bravely speaking up. Chrystal shares the real-life inspirations...
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Mirrors, Windows And Moonlit Roads
Reading With Your Kids Podcast
In this heartfelt episode, Jed welcomes author Julie Leung and illustrator Angie Kang to celebrate their new picture book “Navigating Night,” a moving father–daughter story that beautifully coincides with AAPI Month. Julie shares that Navigating Night grew out of her memories of riding along on Chinese food deliveries with her dad in rural Georgia in the 1990s. The book is part memoir, part homage to her father and to the often-invisible workers in the food service industry who “make sure the food shows up at your doorstep on time”. It also explores the loneliness and...
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Sour, Sweet, and Adventurous: Inspiring Journeys in Children’s Books
Reading With Your Kids Podcast
In this episode of Reading With Your Kids, we’re celebrating three very different – but beautifully connected – picture books and their creators. First, Dr. Candice Childs joins us to talk about her autobiographical picture book “CC, Sour and Sweet Journey to Medical School.” She shares how the “sweet” parts of her journey are actually the moments of growth, resilience, and purpose that came from repeated failure and perseverance. The “sour” moments include painful setbacks and even an advisor bluntly telling her she’d never get into medical school. Candice explains how she...
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Inside The Endless Game
Reading With Your Kids Podcast
In this episode of Reading With Your Kids, we spend most of our time in the joyful, high‑energy world of JD Amato and Sophie Morse, the creative team behind the middle grade graphic novel The Endless Game. JD shares how the story grew out of his own childhood in the Chicago suburbs—moving around a lot, finally landing in one neighborhood where kids knocked on his door and pulled him into a world of street games, friendships, and long summer evenings. That sense of kid freedom and community became the heart of the book’s epic, town‑wide game of capture the flag. Sophie explains how the...
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Every Child Deserves To Be Seen
Reading With Your Kids Podcast
In this episode of Reading With Your Kids, host Jed Doherty welcomes author Kristen Mei Chase and illustrator Basia Tran to celebrate their Gracie Wei chapter book series. Kristen explains that Gracie is a mixed-race Asian American fourth grader with “a lot of opinions and a heart of gold,” designed to reflect many real kids and offer representation she didn’t see for herself or her own children growing up. She clarifies the difference between chapter books (often ages 6–10, transitional early readers) and middle grade (roughly grades 4–8), noting that Gracie Wei bridges those spaces...
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Celebrating The Cozy And Creepy Sides Of Kidlit
Reading With Your Kids Podcast
In this episode of Reading With Your Kids, we’re celebrating both the cozy and the creepy sides of kids’ lit! First, we welcome Alyssa Satin Capucilli, creator of the beloved Biscuit series, as she celebrates 30 years of her small yellow puppy who has helped millions of children become independent readers. Alyssa shares the heartwarming real-life moment that inspired Biscuit, explains the difference between picture books and first readers, and talks about why pattern, repetition, and those famous “woof woofs” are so powerful for young readers. She also reflects on generations of...
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Celebrating Night Owls And Night Markets
Reading With Your Kids Podcast
In this episode, Jed welcomes Emily Sun Li, debut picture book author of Mister Chow’s Night Market, for a warm and lively conversation about creativity, culture, and doing life a little differently. Emily shares how living in Taiwan for two years—zipping around on a moped, drinking fresh juice, and visiting night markets almost every evening—inspired her story of a sleepy grocery store and its equally sleepy, grumpy owner, Mister Chow. When they can’t manage mornings, they reinvent the store as a night market, celebrating night owls, Taiwanese snacks, and the courage to pivot instead...
info_outlineIn this inspiring episode of Reading With Your Kids, host Jed Doherty welcomes debut picture book author and Wall Street executive Ashley Lam, here to celebrate her new children’s book “Wrapped With Love: Wonton Noodle Day With Grandma.”
Ashley shares how the story was inspired by watching her young daughter cook wontons with her grandmother during COVID. Those long days in the kitchen became a powerful reminder of intergenerational love, AAPI family traditions, and the importance of slowing down in a “go, go, go” world. She talks about how food is her mother’s love language, and how this book is a tribute to the special bond between her mom and her daughter—something Ashley herself didn’t experience growing up with busy, hard‑working immigrant parents.
A key theme of the book is embracing imperfection. Ashley opens up about being an eldest daughter and immigrant child who always chased perfection, and how meaningful it is to see her mother now telling her granddaughter that every wonton can be unique—and still perfect in its own way. Jed and Ashley also discuss forgiveness, letting go of resentment, and how strong extended family support allows her to balance motherhood, finance, and creativity, especially during AAPI Heritage Month.
In the final segment, Jed chats with graphic novelist Rosena Fung, creator of “Living With Viola,” a moving graphic novel about anxiety and identity that helps kids and families talk openly about mental health.
This episode is perfect for viewers searching for AAPI children’s books, family read-alouds, and stories about grandparents, culture, and emotional wellness.