How your book is made
You upload a photo. We turn your child into an illustrated character, write a story around them, and print it properly.
Here's every step of it, what it costs, and what happens to the photo.
How it works
1. Pick a path
Three kinds of story, because children need more than dragons. A themed adventure. A real-life day worth keeping. Or one of the big moments — starting school, a new baby arriving.
2. Pick a style
Three of them. Classic Watercolour is the traditional storybook look and the one most children go for. Vivid 3D is bright and rounded, for children who love animated films. Painted Portrait is finely detailed, and it's the one grown-ups tend to choose.
Classic Watercolour
Vivid 3D
Painted Portrait
3. Create your characters
A photo each. Your child, their sister, grandma, the dog.
Then the fun part, and the bit I'd do sitting next to them rather than after they've gone to bed: your child can invent characters of their own. Describe them and we'll draw them. A purple dog who plays the trumpet. A dragon who's frightened of heights. A cloud with a job. The wackier the better — it copes with far more than you'd think.
Every character is drawn and shown to you before a single page is made. If it doesn't look like them, it doesn't go in the book.
4. Choose your story
Pick a themed adventure and we'll write it. Or write it yourself, page by page, if you want the real thing rather than a made-up one.
5. We make it
About ten minutes. You don't have to sit and watch — we'll email you when it's ready.
6. Read it, and change anything you don't like
Nothing is final. Don't like a picture? Regenerate it. Want to change a sentence? Change it. I'd rather you did that than settled for something that isn't right.
7. Order the hardcover
5–10 working days, printed in the UK by a proper book printer rather than a photo lab.
What happens to your photos
Your photo is used for exactly one thing: drawing the character. That’s it.
Once the character is made we delete the original, because we don’t need it any more. What we keep is the drawing.
If a photo doesn’t pass our safety checks it’s deleted straight away and never goes any further.
We don’t use your photos to train anything, and we don’t share them with anyone. The whole thing is built to the ICO Children’s Code, which felt like the least I could do given whose faces these are.
What's in a book
34 pages. Fourteen illustrations, fourteen pages of story, and the bits at the front and back that every proper book has. One theme — the Lakeside railway one — runs to 36.
A4 hardback, 210 × 297mm, hard laminated cover, printed in the UK.
Written to three reading ages: babies and toddlers, three to four, and five and up. Same story, different words.
Up to four characters in a story. Six if it’s a Real Life one.
The ebook is £4.99. The hardcover is £24.99 — that’s the ebook plus a £20 upgrade — and £3.95 delivery.
What it can't do
It’s a drawing, not a photograph. The character should look like your child the way an illustrator would draw them: a bit rounder, a bit braver, better outfits.
Sometimes a picture comes back wrong. That’s what the regenerate button is for, and I’d rather you used it twice than settled once.
Faces a long way back in a crowd don’t come out well, so we either keep people close or leave the crowd out.
We only ship to the UK at the moment.
We’re small. Twenty reviews, not two thousand. That’ll change, but I’m not going to pretend otherwise in the meantime.
Imaginary Island
Anyone your child dreams up can go in the book. Describe them and we’ll draw them — the stranger the better.
And then they stay. Every invented character lives on Imaginary Island, and they’re still there next time. The next book you make, Kevin the purple trumpet dog is waiting, exactly as he was.
This is the bit worth doing together. Make it with them, not for them. Let them decide what the dragon is afraid of and what colour the dog is, and watch their face when it turns up drawn properly on page four. That’s the whole thing, really — it stops being a present and starts being something they made.
As far as I can find, nobody else does this. Children invent things constantly and then those things vanish by teatime. These ones don’t.
Common questions
Is this made by AI?
Yes, and I’d rather say so plainly. The illustrations and the story are generated, then checked. What that means for you is on this page — including what it does badly.
Will it actually look like my child?
It’ll look like them drawn. Hair, colouring, the shape of their face. You see the character before any page is made, so you can judge it before you’ve committed to anything.
What if I don’t like one of the pictures?
Regenerate it. As many times as you need.
Can I change the words?
Yes, any of them, before you order.
How long does it take?
About ten minutes for the book. We email you when it’s done.
What does it cost?
£4.99 for the ebook. £24.99 for the hardcover, which includes the ebook, plus £3.95 delivery.
Is it really printed in the UK?
Yes. A book printer here in the UK, not a photo lab and not overseas.
What happens to my child’s photo?
It’s used to draw the character and then deleted. We don’t train on it and we don’t share it. There’s a fuller answer above.
Can I have more than one child in the book?
Up to four characters, or six in a Real Life story. Siblings, grandparents, the dog.
What age is it for?
Babies through to about seven. The words are written for three different reading ages, so a two-year-old and a six-year-old get different books.
What if something goes wrong?
Email me. It’s still mostly me, so I’m the one who replies.
Can my child help make it?
That’s the best way to do it. Sit with them and let them invent the characters — the odder the better. They’ll spot themselves on page one and their dragon on page four, and it stops being a present and starts being theirs.
Do you ship outside the UK?
Not yet.