A personalised book about aeroplanes

An aeroplane is one of the few huge machines children see almost every day: a white streak across the sky, a distant rumble high above the garden. It raises questions that are hard to let go of. How can something so heavy stay up? Who sits at the front and steers? In a book about aeroplanes, your child takes the controls, reads the dials and chooses where the journey goes. Something far away becomes something your child is in charge of, and the flutter in the tummy at take-off turns into excitement instead of worry.

An aeroplane adventure can be a calm journey or a rescue mission. Your child can fly a little mail plane with letters to an island whose bridge has blown down, land on a snowy runway where everyone helps to clear it, guide a flock of geese that has lost its way south, or fly a lonely teddy home after it was left behind at a holiday resort. Every spread can have its own weather: fog, a headwind, a rainbow seen from above. The airport is a world of its own too: suitcases riding along the belt, the window where you watch the planes taxi out, waiting at the gate with a boarding pass in your hand.

If your child has flown before, give the book that journey: where you were going, what was most fun at the airport, whether their ears popped on landing. If your child has never flown, the destination could be Grandma's town, a country you often talk about or the place that keeps turning up in their drawings. A brother or sister can sit in the co-pilot's seat and the cat can be the only passenger. If it's about a real trip, the book can also cover the whole holiday.

How the book sounds depends on age. A child under two gets sounds and movements: brrrm, up, down, land, wave. A three-year-old enjoys a short flight with a take-off, a small problem and a gentle landing. A six-year-old wants to read the instruments, talk to the tower and perhaps take the controls for a while. For a ten-year-old, the book can carry a real choice, like taking the short route through a storm or the long way round it.

An aeroplane prefers to take off into a headwind. It's the air flowing over the wings that lifts the plane, and when the wind blows towards it, it needs a shorter stretch of runway before it leaves the ground. Fold paper aeroplanes afterwards and try out different wings. Which one glides furthest, and which one nosedives straight into the carpet?

You fill in the child's name, age and what they like, and upload a photo. The story about aeroplanes is written for your very own child, and the thirteen pictures and the cover are drawn from the photo in the style you choose. Brothers and sisters, parents, grandparents or the pet can come along, up to five characters. If you would like to include something that has happened lately, a trip or a lost tooth, just write it and it is woven in.

The eBook is ready a few minutes after payment. Read it, change the text and ask for new pictures until you are happy. Then order it as an A4 hardback book, printed and sent to your door, or straight to the child as a gift. Do add the audiobook or the colouring pages. Start creating the book or read more about the prices. Would you like to see a finished book before you decide? Browse our example books.