Arrrgh! I’ve looked everywhere for this type of books for my kids, ones where they can customize a detachable character and put themselves in the book and interact with its pages, and none exists!

Although Wonderbly and other publishers have already established the “personalized” book concept, where you can upload photos of your child and they will print the book with the main character replaced with the kid, it isn’t exactly interactive or do they provoke the kids imagination beyond “cool, I’m in a book” kind of response.

I wanted an avatar system, similar to the countless video games I’ve played, where putting together the character is fun and engaging. Ada, my four year old daughter, spend hours playing dress-up on paper dolls with stickers, but afterwards, there is nothing else to do with them. Why can’t a book have such a system as well?

I started playing around with a few ideas, making paper cutouts and sketching crappy backgrounds for the paper doll to interact with.





I tested the rough pages on my kids and they loved it, here is a photo of Ada customizing her character.



The first test-of-concept was put together using nothing but printer papers and stables and a few of my kid’s art supplies.

My art skills is severely lacking, I needed help. That is when I found Andreea G. on Fiiver. Let me tell you, I lucked out. She was the first and last artist I talked to, after our initial correspondence my mind was set to recruit her as a partner on this endeavor. We have a long journey ahead.