Good Reads & Good Eats
We want children and families to have a better understanding of what and how we eat.
Publishing
We publish books that give a fresh and fun perspective on what we eat and how we eat through good stories, beautiful writing, and a deep appreciation of food cultures. Publishing program
Education
We partner with community organizations to promote food literacy. Examples include One-City Read Programs with farmers' markets, public libraries, and schools; Book-n-Talk series with authors, chefs, farmers, and children's garden educators. Schedule a program.
Philip Lee
Philip was the co-founder and publisher of Lee & Low Books, an award-winning publishing company focused on multicultural children's literature. A graduate of U.C. Berkeley, he got his start in publishing at Condé Nast, working at a number of their magazines, including Glamour and GQ. As a host and producer for KBCS radio in Bellevue, WA, he reported on educational issues. But it soon became clear to him that youth obesity, hunger, and lack of access to good foods are major obstacles for children learning in school, which led to his reporting on farm-to-school, food security, and the local food movement. Philip sits on the board of Slow Foods Seattle and is a member of Seattle Parks Urban Food System.
“Growing up in Hong Kong, eating fresh was simply part of my culture. Before major holidays, we would buy live chickens and keep them in the back stairways until it was time to slaughter them. Most vivid in my mind is when my grandparents came to visit us and I saw an eel swimming in our bathtub in preparation for their favorite meal.”
June Jo Lee
June’s first job was in the produce department at the original Whole Foods Market in Austin (the one with the big fruit on top), after graduating from University of Texas. She went on to study medical history and food anthropology at Harvard. The more she studied healers and patients, the more she realized that health and wellness begins with the foods people eat, and that what and how people eat are usually determined by culture. In addition to her work at R2E, she is also a full-time food ethnographer, traveling across the country to observe how people shop, cook, and eat in their everyday lives.
“I was born in Korea, and first came to America when I was three. I remember my mom used to make broccoli and red radish kimchi because she couldn’t find napa cabbage at the grocery store in Houston in the ’70s. I remember craving sliced cheese and mayonnaise when we moved back to Seoul in the early ’80s. I've mostly lived between these two cultures. So for me, studying anthropology was an attempt to understand myself. And, I found food a symbolically rich, intimate, and delicious way of getting to know my own cultures as well as others.”