The blog
What to read, what to give, and what actually helps.
Written by the studio that has been drawing other people's families since 2020.
We make custom children’s books: you send one photograph, we draw your child as the character, and they are printed as the main character of a hardcover storybook. Along the way we have learned a lot about what makes one of these worth keeping and what makes it a nicely printed object, and most of it is not obvious from a product page.
So this is where we write it down. What to look for before you order a personalized book from anyone, what happens to the photo you upload, what to read to a child who has stopped sleeping or is about to start school, and what to give the grandparents when they say they do not want anything.
Before you buy
Guide
Custom Children's Books: How They Actually Work, and How to Pick a Good One
The four kinds of custom children's book, what separates a keepsake from a name swap, and the questions worth asking before you order one.
17 min read
Guide
How to Choose a Personalized Book Company: 9 Questions Worth Asking First
The nine checks that separate a keepsake from a disappointment, what a good answer sounds like, and the three red flags worth walking away from.
13 min read
Guide
How to Make a Custom Children's Book: The Honest Version
The four routes to a custom children's book, what each really costs in time and money, and the illustration problem that stops most people.
15 min read
Guide
What Happens to Your Child's Photo When You Upload It to a Personalized Book Site
How photo-based book services handle the picture you send, the license clause worth checking, and how to read a privacy policy in four minutes.
13 min read
Books for a child who...
Choosing a book
Children's Books About Cats, and Why the Cat Should Be Your Cat
What makes a cat book work for a small child, the ones worth reading more than once, and how a real cat changes the story entirely.
12 min read
Choosing a book
Books for a Child Who Is Afraid of the Dark: What Actually Helps at Bedtime
The books that help a frightened child face the dark, the kind that quietly make it worse, and six things to check before you buy one.
20 min read
Choosing a book
Books for Starting Kindergarten: What to Read in the Weeks Before
How to use books to make a first classroom familiar before your child walks into it, what to read when, and the mistake most parents make.
12 min read
Choosing a book
Books for a New Big Brother or Sister: What to Read Before the Baby Comes
Pediatricians recommend reading about it beforehand. Here is what to read, when to start, and why the book should be about the older child.
12 min read
Choosing a book
Books About Kindness for Preschoolers, and What Actually Teaches It
Why be kind is not an instruction a four year old can follow, what books do instead, and how to spot one that is only preaching.
12 min read
Choosing a book
Books for a Child Who Feels Left Out, or Ordinary, or Invisible
What to read to a child who says nobody likes them, why reassurance backfires, and how to tell loneliness from something else.
12 min read
Gifts and occasions
Gifts
Grandparents Day Gifts: What to Give, and When It Actually Is
The date most people get wrong, what grandparents actually keep, and what to give from a child too small to make anything themselves.
15 min read
Gifts
Gifts for Grandpa From the Grandkids, Beyond the Novelty Socks
Why grandfather gifts are so much worse than grandmother gifts, and the four kinds that actually get kept.
12 min read
Gifts
Gifts for Grandma From the Grandchildren, Including the One Who Has Everything
What grandmothers actually keep, why most personalized gifts miss, and what to give when she says she does not want anything.
12 min read
Gifts
Personalized Birthday Gifts for Kids: What Survives Past the Following Week
How the four gift rule works, what makes a personalized present get kept instead of shelved, and what to give a child who has plenty.
12 min read
Gifts
Christmas Gifts for Kids Who Have Everything (Without Adding to the Pile)
What to give a child with too many toys already, how the four gift rule fixes the pile, and the gifts that are still around next Christmas.
12 min read
Gifts
Mother's Day Gifts From a Toddler, When the Toddler Has No Money
What a two or three year old can actually give, what mothers of small children really want, and how to make it come from the child.
12 min read
Gifts
Father's Day Gifts From the Kids, Beyond the Mug and the Tie
Why dad gifts default to jokes, what a small child can genuinely give, and the one thing fathers say they want and never ask for.
12 min read
Gifts
Big Sister and Big Brother Gifts: What to Give the Child Nobody Is Visiting
What to bring the older sibling when a baby arrives, why the timing matters more than the gift, and what to avoid.
12 min read
Gifts
Christening and Baptism Gifts: What Is Appropriate, and What Survives
How much to spend, whether money is acceptable, and why the traditional silver gift almost never gets used.
12 min read
Gifts
Kindergarten Graduation Gifts: What to Give a Five Year Old Who Just Finished
What a five year old actually wants, what parents keep, and the honest answer for teachers buying twenty-five of something.
12 min read
Reading together
Reading together
Best Books for 3 and 4 Year Olds, and Why the Difference Matters
What changes between three and four, how to pick books that get requested again, and what to do about the one they will not stop asking for.
12 min read
Reading together
Why Kids Love Seeing Themselves in Books, and What It Actually Does
The mirror idea behind personalized books, the narrow age window where it works hardest, and the point at which it stops working entirely.
12 min read
Reading together
The Bedtime Routine That Actually Ends the Stalling
Why children stall at bedtime, the four-step routine that stops it, and the exact scripts for water, the toilet and one more page.
14 min read
Every book here starts with one photo.
Send us one, and we will draw your child as the character in about thirty seconds. It costs nothing and you see them before you decide anything.
Try it on a photo