The book they never put down
Their face all through the book
Not just the cover. They are drawn into the story from the first spread to the last, and one of our artists checks every page before it goes to print.
See it before you pay
We draw your child free and show you the cover with their name on it. Nothing is charged until you say yes.
Built to survive a four year old
Hardcover with a matte laminated cover, thick coated pages, printed to order in the USA.
The page you write to them
You write the dedication and we print it word for word, on a page of its own. They hear it at four because you read it to them, and they read it again at twenty, when they are too old for the story and not too old for that.
personalized book for a child who feels ordinary
The Waiting Kingdom
Ages 3 to 10 · Your child
- Who it's for:
- Kids who feel ordinary, or say they are not good at anything.
- What happens:
- Behind the wardrobe, a fading kingdom has waited a hundred years for your child. What saves it is not courage: it is the way your child notices the small things.
Help your child with the quiet, ordinary feeling that they are nobody in particular. On a rainy afternoon with nothing to do, your child finds a cold draft coming from the back of the wardrobe, pushes past the coats, and steps into a kingdom of strange and beautiful creatures that has been running down for a hundred long autumns. The creatures kneel. They have kept a lamp lit and a crown waiting, and they have been watching the door all that time for your child, who says the only honest thing there is to say, which is that they are not brave and not clever and they just count raindrops. What saves the kingdom in the end is exactly that: your child kneels down at the dead tree at the heart of the world, looks properly at one dried up flower, says out loud what color it would be at home, and the color comes back. By the last page they are sitting on their own bedroom rug holding an ordinary glass of water up to the light, and finding a rainbow in it. It gives a child who feels overlooked something better than being told they are special, which is a story where paying attention turns out to be the rarest thing in any world. Written in rhyme across thirteen spreads, for children who have started saying they are not good at anything.
About half a minute. No account, no card.
About six business days, printing included
Every book is checked by a real artist
- Ages
- 3 to 10
- Who is in it
- The child
- The book
- Hardcover, 30 pages, 11 × 8.3 in
Inside this book
A real page from The Waiting Kingdom
Thirteen spreads, all at 300 dpi.
Your child
One photo makes them the star
We draw them from it once, then keep that same face across every spread. Their name goes under the title, where they can see it without opening the book.
Made to be handled, not admired
It gets carried around the house, slept on, and read four hundred times. Thick coated pages, a matte laminated hardcover, and thirteen spreads printed at 300 dpi across both pages. Nothing is printed until you order it, so the only copy that exists is the one with your child on the cover.
Printed and bound in the United States
- Pages
- 30 pages, drawn at 4K and printed at 300 dpi
- Paper
- 170gsm coated silk
- Cover
- Matte laminated hardcover
- Binding
- Glued, square edges
- Dedication
- Its own page, after the story
- Delivery
- At your door in about six business days, printed just for you and tracked all the way
What families wrote back
4.9
3,000+ reviews from families across the studio, since 2020
My daughter couldn’t believe it when she saw herself in the story. She keeps saying, ‘That’s me!’ Every bedtime starts with this book now.
The quality is amazing. Thick pages, beautiful colors, and the personalization looks so natural. It truly feels like the story was written just for my son.
I thought it would just be a cute gift, but it quickly became my daughter’s favorite bedtime story.
We chose the story about overcoming the fear of the dark. After reading it together for a few nights, bedtime has become so much easier.
The shipping was much faster than I expected. The book arrived in perfect condition.
This is such a unique gift. Everyone in our family was amazed when they saw it.
The illustrations are absolutely beautiful, and seeing my son’s face throughout the story made us all smile.
Customer service was fantastic. They helped me make a small change before printing, and everything turned out perfectly.
My daughter actually asks to read instead of watching TV before bed now.
Before you decide
Is this another book that tells my child they are special?
It is close to the opposite, and that is deliberate. When the kingdom kneels, your child says the honest thing: that they are not brave, not clever, and mostly they count raindrops. What saves the place is that they kneel at the dead tree and look properly at one dried up flower until the color comes back. Attention is the rare thing here, not being chosen.
My child is the quiet one who says nothing is special about them. Is this too on the nose?
It is written for that child, and it never says the feeling out loud as a problem to be fixed. The story simply puts them somewhere their ordinary habit turns out to be the thing that matters, and ends them back on their own bedroom rug, finding a rainbow in a glass of water.
Can I put more than one child in the book?
Yes, in one story: The One Who Goes First is written for two children, both drawn from your photos. Sixteen of the others have one child, and eight of them add grown ups or your pet: I Love You, Mom; I Love You, Dad; The House That Remembers; The Cat Who Knew the Way; One More Hour; Come and Find Me; The Unfinished One; and My Hero. Nobody in a book costs extra.
Can I preview it before paying?
That is the whole point of the free preview. Upload a photo and see your child drawn, then on the cover with their name, before you decide. No account, no card, nothing to cancel. One honest note: the preview is a first draft. Before anything is printed we check it page by page, and the printed book is sharper than what you see on screen.
Why $59, when a name-only book costs less?
A name-only book shows every family the same drawn child and drops in a name. Here your child is drawn from your photo, the same face on the cover and all through the story, and anyone else in it from their own photo at no extra charge. It is a thirty-page hardcover printed to order in the USA, and you see your child drawn, on the cover with their name, before you pay anything.
What is actually personalized?
Your child's face first: we draw them from your photo and keep that same face on the cover and all through the story, and anyone else in the book is drawn from their own photo. Their name goes under the title and into the verses, and the page after the story is yours to write, printed word for word. The story and the scenes around them are the same for everyone who picks this title, written and drawn before you arrive and approved page by page, so nothing strange can turn up in your child's book.
What is the book physically?
A landscape hardcover, 11 by 8.3 inches (280 by 210 mm), thirty pages on 170gsm coated silk paper, matte laminated cover, glued binding. Printed in the United States.
How long does it take to arrive?
About six business days. Your book does not exist until you order it, so it has to be printed, bound and shipped, and we count the printing inside those six days. Ordering on a Thursday means it lands the week after, so leave room before a birthday. Shipping is $6.99 inside the US, and free on orders from $88.
What kind of photo works?
For each person in the story, one clear shot of the face, looking roughly at the camera, in decent light. For a cat or dog, one daylight photo where their markings show. A phone photo is fine. A scan from an old album is fine too: the picture at the top of our home page is our founder in about 1992, scanned off film, and the character came straight from it.
What do you do with the photo?
We look at it once to build the character, and from then on the character is what travels through the book. Your photo is never printed on a page. Thirty days after your book ships it is deleted from our systems. Want it deleted sooner? Write to hello@dreamtalecartoons.com and we delete it, no reason needed.
What if it comes out wrong?
Write to hello@dreamtalecartoons.com before it prints and we fix it for free, or cancel and refund you in full: books go to the printer shortly after you order, so write quickly. If it arrives damaged, send us a photo and we reprint it, and you keep the damaged one. If we got something wrong (a misspelled name, the wrong dedication, a printing fault), send us a photo and we reprint it at our cost, or refund you in full if you would rather.
The character does not look like them.
You see the character before you pay, and that is the moment to tell us: write to hello@dreamtalecartoons.com and we redraw it. If you only notice once the book has arrived, write anyway and we will find a way to make it right. Likeness is the one thing we cannot get wrong, so we would rather you were fussy than polite.
Not here? See all the questions, or write to hello@dreamtalecartoons.com. A person answers.
