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A BIG MOMENT

For the week everything changes

A first day at school, a new baby in the house, a move, a goodbye. A story lets a child walk through it once before it happens, with their own name on the door.

One line is enough, for example
  • Starting at the big school on Monday
  • A baby sister is coming in the spring
  • Moving to a house with a red door
  • Saying goodbye to Biscuit, our old dog
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No card, no password. One book to keep, whatever you decide after.

  • Their own first day, rehearsed

    Their real school gate, their real teacher's name, the coat they will actually wear. A child who has read the day once walks into it a little more sure of where things are.

  • Gentle where it needs to be

    Say it is for a hard week, and the story keeps the tension low and the ending warm. The age you set decides how much can go wrong in the middle.

  • Every word read before it is drawn

    With a subject this close to home you will want to check the words. The whole text waits for you first: change a line, soften a page, or start again before anything is drawn.

  • The people who matter, in it

    Put in the new baby, the grandparent who is ill, the friend they are leaving behind. Everyone you save keeps the same face from book to book.

Reviewing the draft of a harbour book before anything is drawn: page one's text, and under it the instruction the illustrator will get, which you can change.

What it is not

A story can make a big change feel more familiar. It is not advice, and it does not replace talking it through with your child, or with someone qualified when things are really hard.

Other ways into a story

  • Rosie and Lucas stand in a wet street at dusk in their raincoats and wellies, Comet beside them, the harbour lights glowing behind.

    THEIR OWN ADVENTURE

    A story nobody has told yet

    A lighthouse with a nest in it, a lift that stops at floor thirteen. You give one line, and they get the starring role.

    About adventures
  • The same moment as a watercolour page: the girl mid-jump above the splash, her mum laughing in the water, her brother and the dog beside the cool box on the jetty.

    MEMORIES KEPT

    A real day, kept as a book

    Your photos of the summer, the first day at school, the dog, drawn as pages in your order and your words.

    About memory books
  • In a stone workshop at the top of a tower block, a small boy in a red bicycle helmet cheers as an old broom sprouts twig legs and picks up a bucket.

    YOUR CHILD IN A CLASSIC

    The tale you grew up with

    Goethe's broom, Grimm's forest, Aesop's hare. The old words stay, and your child walks in between them.

    About classics

What every book gets

Tonight's story could have your child in it

It takes about ten minutes to make the first one, and you keep it whether or not you ever pay us a cent.

Make your first book, free

No card, no password. One book to keep, whatever you decide after.