A custom board book for this tiny season

There is a small window when their favorite color, favorite pajamas, and favorite bedtime line all feel like the whole world. A custom board book turns a piece of that season into something you can read together.

Start their book: upload the photo, see a free preview

Built for the way toddlers read

A toddler does not read a book so much as own it. It gets carried to the car, opened on the kitchen floor, and used as a step stool once. So the printed book is a proper board book: 6 by 6 inches, 20 chipboard pages a sixteenth of an inch thick, matte laminate, rounded corners. Same weight and feel as the board books they already drag around.

An inside spread of a personalized toddler board book

Written for the age, not just the name

Age changes the book. For a one year old the lines are short, there is one idea on each page, and a phrase comes back again and again on purpose, because that is what they will chant along with by the third reading. At two the story picks up a small problem and fixes it. At three there is a beginning, a middle, and an ending they can retell to grandma. You tell us the age. The story is written to it.

Your child is drawn as the hero from one photo, in one of ten illustration styles. Soft Pastel and Cozy Felt tend to suit the youngest; Vivid Crayon for the ones who never sit down.

The details that make it theirs

Skip the adjectives. Give us the word they say wrong, the stuffed animal that goes everywhere, the thing they point at every morning from the window. Two or three of those are enough. They are also the things you will have forgotten by kindergarten, which is half the point of making the book now.

See it before you pay

You get a free preview of the cover and one spread. If your child does not look like your child, change the photo or the details and preview again. Nothing is charged until you approve it, and a person checks every page before print. If the printed book is wrong, we redo it or refund it.

Price, timing, siblings

One board book is $49 and takes about two weeks to arrive in the United States: 3 to 5 business days to print, 5 to 8 to ship. Two board books are $89 together with free US shipping. If you have a toddler and a new baby, that is the big sibling book and the baby's first book in one box.

Start with the photo. Looking at occasions, a first birthday or a new sibling? Occasion books are here. Weighing this against a hardcover picture book? Board usually wins for this age, and here is why.

Questions parents ask

Is TinyStar a toddler board book or a hardcover picture book?

A board book. 6 by 6 inches, 20 chipboard pages, matte laminate, rounded corners, the same construction as the board books toddlers already carry around.

Does the story change with the child's age?

Yes. For a one year old the lines are short with a repeating phrase; at two the story picks up a small problem and solves it; at three there is a beginning, middle, and end. You give us the age and the story is written to it.