Ten books worth making with your kids
Concrete project ideas that work — from a one-afternoon story about the dog to a school-year album you build over ten months.
The hardest part of making a book with a child is not the app. It is deciding what the book is about. Here are ten that reliably work.
1. The one about the pet
Six pages. The dog wakes up, the dog does four things, the dog goes to sleep. Your child will have opinions about all four things. This is the best first book anyone can make and it takes an afternoon.
2. The holiday, in order
Photos from a trip, in the order they happened, one page per day or per stop. Use the Travel Diary theme. Real photographs work better than illustrations here — it is the actual memory, and no drawing improves on that.
3. The monster who is scared of something silly
Let them invent the monster and draw it. Then find the thing it is frightened of. Sequins. Cucumber. Tuesdays. Their logic will be better than yours.
4. What I want to be
A page per job they fancy, illustrated from their own drawing of themselves doing it. Date it. Make the same book again in three years, which is when it gets good.
5. The bedtime routine
Every step of the evening, illustrated. This one is quietly useful — a book about the routine tends to help with the routine. Read it during the routine.
6. Grandma’s story
Ask a grandparent to tell one story from when they were small. Record them telling it — use the narration feature — then illustrate it together. This is the one families keep.
7. The school year
Start in September. Add a page whenever something happens or a good drawing comes home. Export it in June. Ten minutes a month; a genuine artefact at the end.
8. The counting book
One to ten, with a drawing for each number. Simple enough for a three-year-old to lead, and they will read it back to you endlessly.
9. The alternate ending
Take a story they already know and change the ending. They will fight you about whether this is allowed, and then produce something much stranger than the original.
10. The book about a really ordinary day
Wednesday. Nothing happened. The bus was late, there was a dog outside the shop, someone had the wrong shoes. In fifteen years this will be the most valuable book on the list, and it costs one afternoon.
A note on scope
First books get abandoned when they are too ambitious. Six pages, one afternoon, one export, print it, read it at bedtime. If anyone asks for another one, you have your answer. Start with create your first project.