Dorktales Podcast about Fortune Cookies for Everyone!

Dorktales Podcast’s Hidden Hero of History series features Makoto Hagiwara from picture book Fortune Cookies for Everyone!

A tale of artistry, innovation, and lasting legacy! Makoto Hagiwara, a Japanese American landscape architect, transformed a World’s Fair exhibit into San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden. It’s the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States, still cherished as a place of peace and natural beauty. Makoto was also the inventive mind behind the modern fortune cookie! Despite wartime hardships and lost recognition, his creativity, friendship, and tasty experiments turned a simple crunchy cookie into a sweet symbol of good fortune enjoyed around the world.

The podcast episode is here.

Fortune Cookies for Everyone!: The Surprising Story of the Tasty Treat We Love to Eat by Mia Wenjen, illustrated by Colleen Kong-Savage

An investigative picture book which cracks the cookie open to discover what is known about the origins of everyone’s favorite crunchy after-dinner treat.

This Smithsonian collaboration unwraps the mystery of the fortune cookie and the immigrant stories behind it.

Grandma Miyako hosts her grandchildren for a takeout meal. Of course, at the end of the meal, she hands out the fortune cookies and begins to share the story of this popular treat with the attentive children as they munch on them. She claims she knew the true inventor of the fortune cookie, but the history is not so clear. Using “fortunes” as headings, each section of the book delivers an episode in the unusual history of the fortune cookie and lays out the great debate about where and when they were first made. California was certainly the location, but in which city was the original baker located? This picture book looks inside these crunchy, biscuity treats to reveal the cultural origins and locations of the creators. Along the way, we discover some surprising history regarding this delicious edible delight, including a rivalry between bakers that remains somewhat unresolved today. Fortune Cookies for All is a compelling mystery containing US history—the good, the bad, and the ugly—in a single bite. But most of all, it celebrates immigrants and their pursuit of the American dream. [picture book, ages 5 and up]

To learn more, go to the episode webpage.

Get a free activity guide on Makoto Hagiwara.

This episode of Dorktales Storytime is presented by Red Comet Press, and their hardcover children’s book, Fortune Cookies for Everyone: The Surprising Story of the Tasty Treat We Love to Eat by Mia Wenjen with illustrations by Colleen Kong-Savage.

p.s. Related posts:

FORTUNE COOKIES FOR EVERYONE Geography Game featuring WWII Internment Sites!

FORTUNE COOKIES FOR EVERYONE is a Junior Library Guild Gold Selection!

A Great Review by BookList for FORTUNE COOKIES FOR EVERYONE!

FORTUNE COOKIES FOR EVERYONE Picture Book Trailer

Fortune Cookies for Everyone and meeting Colleen Kong-Savage at ALA

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My books:

Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me

Fortune Cookies for Everyone! (Smithsonian): The Surprising Story of the Tasty Treat We Love to Eat

California Eureka Non-Fiction Gold Award
Junior Library Guild Gold Selection

Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me

Barbed Wire Between Us by Mia Wenjen, illustrated by Violeta Encarnación

⭐ Starred review from Kirkus Reviews!

Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me

The Traveling Taco: The Amazing and Surprising Journey of Many of Your Favorite Foods

California Eureka Non-Fiction Silver Award
Reading Rockets’ Summer Reading Guide 2025

Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me

We Sing from the Heart: How the Slants® Took Their Fight for Free Speech to the Supreme Court

ALSC Notable Children’s Book
2025 Carter G. Woodson Book Award Middle Level Honoree
Orbis Pictus Recommended Book for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children
2024 Julia Ward Howe Prize for Children’s Literature Winner
California Eureka Non-Fiction Award Honor Book
Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People Winner (from National Council for the Social Studies and Children’s Book Council)
Bank Street Best Children’s Books of the Year 2025
Recommended Reading for the Social Justice Literature Award 2025 (International Literacy Association)
Junior Library Guild Gold Selection