Whalen Book Works

With hilariously yucky ABCs, The Yuckiest Alphabet Book in the World celebrates a love for everything muddy, messy, icky, and gooey! 

Learning the alphabet has never been yuckier! This colorful, cringey collection cycles through each letter of the alphabet, pairing the ABCs with wonderfully yucky words and hilarious imagery to create an icky-sticky fun tour of our weird little language. Prepare your stomach (and your brain) for combinations like…

A is for apple, rotten and wormy
B is for boogie, bright green and germy
C is for candy, stuck to your hair
D is for dragon, breathing stinky fire everywhere
Y is for yak, drooling and stinky
Zzzzzz is for bedtime, and bedtime is YUCKY!

Let this book be a resource for your kids and a reading activity for the whole family! Organized from atrocious A to zany Z and decked out with illustrations that are bound to turn your tummy, The Yuckiest Alphabet Book in the World is the perfect balance of yuck and yay! Just look at the cover: draped in striped, brightly colored fur, this book boasts a “so-ugly-its-cute” aesthetic that would look good on any bookshelf or nursery. But it’s not what’s on the outside that counts...it’s what’s on the inside, which is why we’ve opted for sturdy board pages for this colorful kids' book. Revisit the fun of learning with this whimsical exploration of the English language. 

Motivational quote books abound, but where are the volumes of misquotations?! In this era of fake news and fake quotes, The Little Book of Misquotations uncovers the truth behind the 200+ most famous things they never said!

Just because a quote is engraved in marble, stenciled on your mom’s wall, or repeated a million times online doesn’t exactly mean that it is correct. It’s time to set the record straight. The Little Book of Misquotations is the definitive collection of the quotes people frequently get wrong, including: 

“For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.” — Audrey Hepburn (Somebody else said it!)
“I want to suck your blood.” — Dracula (Nope! He said, “I only drink…wine.”)
“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” — Banksy (He wasn’t the first person to say it!)
“A penny saved is a penny earned.” — Ben Franklin (That’s not what he said!)

With deep dives on popular yet erroneous quotations from artists, writers, celebrities, scientists, politicians, and legendary figures from around the globe, The Little Book of Misquotations offers addictive reading—and a delightful reminder not to believe everything you read! 

You know Mark Twain, creator of the long-beloved characters Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, but have you heard what he said about Jane Austen? The Little Book of Zingers will feature the greatest comebacks and one-liners of all time, uttered by the iconic men and women we know and love (or love to hate)!

Every generation sees its fair share of geniuses: men and women who possess boundless intellect and are capable of incredible insight. Søren Kierkegaard was such a man. Widely considered the father of existential philosophy, Kierkegaard uttered such profundities as: “If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.” But on one truly momentous occasion, Kierkegaard made one confident and succinct statement that shook the earth: “My opponent is a glob of snot.” Kierkegaard spoke of Hans Martensen, an academic with whom he’d had a fair share of disagreements. The two often went toe-to-toe in scholarly debate, but with this dynamite zinger, Kierkegaard ended all further discussion. After all, who expects to be called a glob of snot? There’s no coming back from that. The Little Book of Zingers will explore the rich depths of crushingly hilarious salt-in-the-wound one-liners you’ve never heard that’ll make you gasp at their audacity. From the Age of Enlightenment to the Roaring Twenties to the boogie-down seventies, The Little Book of Zingers will take readers on a journey through some of history’s greatest burns, spoken by the men and women who shaped the world. 

Make time for the things that really matter in life. Find balance and happiness in your daily life, the Scandinavian way, with The Scandinavian Guide to Happiness!

There’s a reason Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Sweden consistently rank as the top 5 happiest countries on earth! Find out the secrets to their happiness and fulfillment in The Scandinavian Guide to Happiness, which shares centuries of Nordic wisdom, including: 

- Lykke: Happiness is all around you (Denmark)
- Lagom: Just the right amount—not too much, not too little (Sweden)
- Fika: Taking daily coffee breaks and other comforting rituals (Sweden)
- Hygge: Coziness brings comfort, courage, and happiness (Denmark)
- Sisu: Everyday courage, grit, and determination & acting rationally in the face of adversity

These basic principles will help you see how to have a happy life without buying anything, changing yourself, or making any other crazy drastic changes! Topics include Simplicity, Happiness, Health & Wellness, Relationships, Nature-Inspired Living, and more. Full of inspiring, encouraging ideas—and charming illustrations!—this thoughtful Scandinavian guide is sure to put a happy glow on your life. 

Bacteria are everywhere. In your kitchen. On your face. Even under your fingernails. The Germaphobe’s Handbook will expose them all, detailing these microbes favorite places to mingle and how to best keep them out of your life. 

Do you swear by hand sanitizer? Avoid sharing drinks at restaurants? Wash your hands for the full twenty seconds after every meal? Or do you simply want to improve your personal hygiene? Then The Germaphobe’s Handbook is for you. This sleek pocket guide will offer everything you need to know about germs, where they live, how they get there, and how you can eliminate or avoid them. (No hard feelings, germs.). Here are just a few examples: 

- Phone Cases: In a world where smart phones are treated like an extra limb, it shouldn’t be surprising that they and the cases that protect them are covered in germs, especially considering the heat that they generate which creates an ideal environment for harmful microbes. Luckily, there’s an easy fix. Fill a water bottle with distilled water and 70% Isopropyl Alcohol. Squirt this elixir onto a microfiber pad and you have yourself a germ-fighting juice fit for a king.
- Doorknobs: Public restrooms have made great strides in eliminating germs from their spaces, but one thing they haven’t tackled is doorknobs - that little round thing everyone who uses the bathroom uses on their way out. While some places have adopted high-tech measures to combat this issue like plastic-covered doorknobs that automatically filter out after every use, there are other, simpler solutions, like installing copper or brass doorknobs which naturally cut out germs over time. 
- Dollar Bills and Coins: When you hear the phrase “dirty money,” your mind may immediately jump to drug deals or an assassin’s salary, but maybe you should take a more literal approach to this phrase. Why? Because studies show that fibrous U.S. dollars may be one of the dirtiest objects in the world. Their lengthy circulation multiplied by the number of people each bill comes in contact with (single bills see more activity than larger ones) creates a recipe for disaster. Thankfully, the cure for this issue has already been introduced, albeit, for other reasons; with the nation’s move towards automation comes a growing preference for “cash-free” lifestyles that favor credit cards and digital money apps over physical bills. No money, no problems!
- Bar Nuts: You know the little bowls of almonds and cashews some places serve to keep you occupied while you wait for your blind date or perpetually late best friend? Well, they’re filled with more than just healthy nuts - they’re also filled with germs contributed by every fingertip that has entered the bowl. How do you combat this threat? Simple. Don’t eat them. They’re not even that good. Just order an appetizer.

Those are just a sample of what this book has in store. Listing the top 100 dirtiest items, and the top 100 solutions, this pocket guide has everything you need to survive in a bacteria-laden world. With graphic spot illustrations that will bring these germs off the page (you know, in a good way), The Germaphobe’s Handbook makes a great gift for anyone who craves cleanliness. 

Turn your home into an underwater utopia with Your Bedroom Is An Ocean!, a one-of-a-kind craft book filled with everything a young seafarer needs to transform their space into an ethereal ecosystem!  

Why look to the sky for mystery and wonder when one of history’s greatest puzzles is right below our noses? Earth’s oceans remain one of the most mystifying entities in existence. Swarming with species that have yet to be identified and housing unique characters like sailors, pirates, and (according to some) aliens, the planet’s waters are one of the remaining frontiers of our modern world. So why wouldn’t children want to immerse themselves in this mystical environment?

Your Bedroom Is An Ocean! gives them that power, making ocean exploration as easy as 1-2-turn the page please! And trust us, these pages are filled to the brim with facts and activities too irresistible to ignore, like…

- The largest ocean is the Pacific, which covers 30% of the Earth’s surface.
- Tsunamis can thunder in at 500 miles per hour, on a good day. 
- The water emitting from hydrothermal vents deep beneath the surface can reach up to 750 degrees Fahrenheit. 
- The planet’s largest mountain range is not the Andes...it’s the Mid-Oceanic ridge and it’s nearly ten times longer than it’s above-the-surface counterpart, clocking in at a mind-boggling 40,390 miles. 
- Have you heard of The Bloop? It’s not a children's TV character; it’s the largest “ocean sound” that has ever been recorded, and it happened in 1997. 
- There are over 3 million shipwrecks peppering our ocean floors. 
- 91 percent of sea creatures have yet to be discovered, which means marine biologists still have a lot of work to do. 

Want more? Don’t worry. As the universe’s largest inhabited space, the world’s oceans have plenty of information to offer, all of which will be folded within the pages of our bubbly book. More than just a textbook, though, Your Bedroom Is An Ocean! is also jam-packed with stunning photographs and textile add-ons like stickers that will help kids and parents alike submerge themselves into this perplexing underwater adventure. 

Learning how to count has never been yuckier! 

With an outrageously furry cover and playful 1-2-3s, The Yuckiest—and Most Fun—Counting Book in the World celebrates how fun counting can be! This colorful counting book pairs numbers with silly rhymes and hilarious illustrations to create a delightfully fun journey from 1 through 10 and beyond! Including…

1 muddy puddle, squishy and mucky
2 shoes, reeking and grimy
3 baby diapers, goopy and poopy
4 pickle ice creams, sour, bitter, and drippy
5 apples, rotten and wormy

It’s the funniest way to get from 1 to 10! Just look at the cover: draped in striped, brightly colored fur, The Yuckiest—and Most Fun—Counting Book in the World boasts a so-ugly-its-cute aesthetic that will look good on any bookshelf or nursery. But it’s not what’s on the outside that counts . . . it’s what’s on the inside, which is why we’ve opted for sturdy board book pages built to last. Revisit the fun of learning with this whimsical exploration of the 1-2-3s. Now kids will never forget their numbers!