The questions people ask before they buy
Not one of these is about us. They are the things a parent or a grandparent is actually working out - what to write inside, whether a child who hates reading will read this, how long a book takes to arrive - answered properly and in one place.
For grandparents
How to make a personalized storybook for a grandchild, what you need before you start, and how to get it there in time.
Read the guideTwins & siblings
How personalized books work when you are buying for two children - twins, siblings, or cousins the same age - and why one shared book is the wrong answer.
Read the guideChoosing a story
Fifty-four stories, and a short way to narrow them down: start from the child rather than the catalogue.
Read the guideWhile you wait
Four things you are entitled to before any diagnosis arrives - including one legal right in England that most families are never told about.
Read the guideThe same story again
Reading the same book for the ninth time feels like a failure of imagination. The research says it is the opposite.
Read the guideWhen they cannot sit still
What to do when story time lasts ninety seconds - including one approach tested on 850 children that costs nothing and does not need you at all.
Read the guideThe other child
What the population data actually says about brothers and sisters - and the one finding that should change how guilty you feel.
Read the guideFine at school, not at home
Why the glowing school report and the six o'clock meltdown are the same fact - and why it is not a verdict on your parenting.
Read the guideWhat to write in it
Thirty lines you can copy, sorted by who it is from and what the occasion is - plus the three things that make one worth keeping.
Read the guideWhen someone has died
The words to use, why "we lost Grandma" confuses a four-year-old, and the one sentence to say before your child asks for it.
Read the guideChoosing books for ADHD
Interest beats length, the reading-age gap nobody explains, and why audiobooks are not cheating - with the evidence for each.
Read the guideBooks from a photo
A photo book, a story with your photo pasted in, and a story where your child is drawn on every page are three different products - and they are all sold as the same sentence.
Read the guideStarting school
Most starting-school presents are bought for the adult's feelings. Here is what the child notices, what every parent secretly needs, and the one rule about summer-born children.
Read the guideSensory-friendly books
Cover finish, paper weight and the noise a page makes decide whether a book gets opened - and almost no listing mentions any of them.
Read the guidePhoto privacy compared
We read the published privacy policy of ten photo-based personalized book services and pulled the same answers out of each: how long the photograph is kept, whether it is used to train an AI model, and what the document does not address at all. Every cell is a quotation with a link, and our own answer is in the same table.
Read the guideOr skip the reading and see a book with your child in it, free.