Why the theme The enchanted forest makes a good book
An adventure that suits the child
To a child, a forest is already a little bit magical: paths that vanish behind a boulder, sounds that come from nowhere you can see, mushrooms that spring up overnight. In the enchanted forest, all of that is given a voice. The trees can answer back, a fox can show the way and an owl might know something important. Your child gets to walk in among the trunks and feel that delicious shiver, with a story that holds their hand the whole way. A child who has lived through a tale like this often sees the next woodland walk with new eyes, and starts looking for doors among the roots.
What waits among the trees
A book set in the enchanted forest can begin as an ordinary walk and then slip into the strange. Your child might carry a lantern for a lost hedgehog, help a stream that has forgotten which way to flow, or answer a riddle set by an old oak before it lets anyone pass. Perhaps the forest's song has gone missing and has to be gathered up again, note by note, from the birds, the wind and the rain. There might be a wood sprite who has lost her shadow, or a tree that has fallen so deeply asleep the birds can no longer nest in it. Your child listens, searches and discovers that the forest answers those who keep quiet.
Your own woods, under a spell
The best enchanted forest looks like the one you already walk in. Write in what you usually see: the fallen pine you clamber over, the brambles beside the footpath, the boulder that looks like a sleeping old man. Bring along whoever usually comes with you, perhaps Grandad with his flask of tea or the dog that always races ahead. Then it's your child's very own woods that have come to life. Write in, too, what your child likes doing there – building dens, gathering conkers, hiding behind the fir trees – so the magic has somewhere to start.
For the littlest ones, sounds and colours are enough: green, rustle, an owl that goes hoo. Three- and four-year-olds like a clear route from the edge of the forest to a clearing and home again. Slightly older children enjoy a conversation with a tree that can't quite be trusted, and ten-year-olds can cope with a forest where it takes a while to work out who is a friend.
Next time you head outside
Look for the things that were in the book: a path nobody else has noticed, a root shaped like a door, a mossy mound that might be a sleeping troll. There really are fungi whose threads glow faintly in the dark, so the forest is a little bit magical for real. If your child would rather have the forest just as it is, without any spells, there's a separate theme about the forest.
Your child is the hero
You fill in the child's name, age and what they like, and upload a photo. The story about the enchanted forest 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.
From eBook to hardback book
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.
How the story could begin
It has rained all day, and now everything smells of wet earth and pine. You stand at the edge of the forest in your wellies. In there, between two big stones, lies a path you've never seen before. It's covered in pine needles that crunch underfoot. Further in, it grows quieter. The birds stop singing, and instead you hear a rustling that sounds almost like words. “This way,” it whispers. “This way, this way.” A little fir tree bends a branch down towards you, as if it's pointing. At the foot of an old pine sits a badger in spectacles, reading a book made of birch bark. He looks up and seems surprised. “So you can see the path,” he says slowly. “Then you must be the one who will help us find the forest's lost song.”










