How we choose books | Wau Books [![Wau Books](https://waubooks.com/logo/logo-wordmark-502.webp)Wau Books](https://waubooks.com/) [Discover](https://waubooks.com/discover) [Collections](https://waubooks.com/collections) [Journal](https://waubooks.com/journal) [About](https://waubooks.com/about) [Contact](https://waubooks.com/contact) [← About](https://waubooks.com/about) 1. [Home](https://waubooks.com/)/ 2. [About](https://waubooks.com/about)/ 3. How we choose Our method # How we choose books Wau Books is small on purpose. Two people choose everything, every book is read before it is listed, and nothing on the site is placed because a publisher paid for it. This page says exactly how that works. Four steps ## From a book in the post to a page on the site 1. 01 ### Dayang reads the whole book Every title is read cover to cover by Dayang, our co-founder and lead curator, from a copy we own or borrow. Not a sample, not the blurb. If she would not hand the book to a child she knows, it does not go on the site. 2. 02 ### Chris checks the facts Chris, our co-founder, verifies the edition we list: ISBN, binding, page count, publisher and the price at each retailer we link to. Age bands follow the publisher's guidance and Dayang's reading of the book. 3. 03 ### We write it up from the book in hand Descriptions describe the book we read: the format, the language, what a child meets inside, who it suits. Where a book carries "Wau's reading note", that note is Dayang's own, written after reading. 4. 04 ### Prices are checked, then checked again Prices and availability are confirmed when a book is listed and re-checked periodically. The retailer's page always shows the current price; ours shows what we last saw. ## What gets a book dropped More books are left off than go on. The usual reasons: - Poor print quality: thin paper, loose binding, muddy colour, text too small for the age it claims. - Inaccurate content: facts a child would learn wrong, in any language we list. - Values that do not sit well with Malaysian families: we are not prudish, but we are careful about what sits on a child's shelf. - Edition problems: a listing we cannot pin to a real ISBN, or a retailer whose stock we cannot confirm. ## How we earn, and what we do not do Most books link to retailers through affiliate links: if you buy, the retailer pays us a small commission and your price does not change. We also sell our own titles, Wau Books Originals, directly. Our [affiliate disclosure](https://waubooks.com/legal/affiliate-disclosure) has the detail. We do not accept payment for a listing or a position on the site, we do not publish star ratings we did not earn by reading, and we do not list a book we have not read. When a retailer runs out of stock or raises a price, we would rather you told us than found out at checkout: write to [hello@waubooks.com](https://waubooks.com/mailto:hello@waubooks.com). ## Who we are Dayang is the reader: co-founder, lead curator and the named author of every journal guide. Chris is the builder: co-founder, responsible for the catalogue data, the shop and the site itself. Between us we read in English and Bahasa Malaysia, and we ask friends who read Mandarin and Tamil before we list a book in those languages. We are parents choosing for our own family first. That is the whole editorial policy. [About Wau Books](https://waubooks.com/about) [Browse the collections](https://waubooks.com/collections) ![Stack of hardcover children's books](https://waubooks.com/about/rec1.webp)![Close-up of book pages with illustrations](https://waubooks.com/about/rec2.webp) ![Clean workspace with open books](https://waubooks.com/about/rec3.webp)![Colorful book covers on a wooden shelf](https://waubooks.com/about/rec4.webp) Wau Books Calm, editorial-first book discovery for Malaysian families who want thoughtful recommendations. [Discover](https://waubooks.com/discover) [Collections](https://waubooks.com/collections) [Journal](https://waubooks.com/journal) [About](https://waubooks.com/about) [How we choose](https://waubooks.com/about/how-we-choose) [For schools](https://waubooks.com/for-schools) [The letter](https://waubooks.com/newsletter/archive) [Contact](https://waubooks.com/contact) [Privacy Policy](https://waubooks.com/legal/privacy-policy) [Terms of Use](https://waubooks.com/legal/terms) [Affiliate Disclosure](https://waubooks.com/legal/affiliate-disclosure)Cookie settings © 2026 Wau Books. Some retailer links may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you. 1% of our shop sales supports [frontier carbon removal](https://stripe.com/en-my/climate/contribute). Built for Malaysian family reading life. Engineered by [GambitGrid](https://gambitgrid.com?utm_source=wau&utm_medium=client-referral)