Personalized Books: Reading, Having Fun, & Building Confidence!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 16th, 2006 at 9:57 pm and is filed under Self Esteem, Raising Small Souls Recommendations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

11 Responses to “Personalized Books: Reading, Having Fun, & Building Confidence!”

1. Alice says:
   

   With all due respect, most personalized books I’ve ever seen were a poorly written excuse to drain money from parents and grandparents. How about instead you work with your child to MAKE UP a story that they are the star of? Let them suggest settings, characters, plot lines, etc. Cross pollinate wildly from different sources. Encourage them to create drawings from the story. Make it a serial, with a new installment regularly. Let them act out the story with dress-up clothing. Make it something that isn’t just a formulaic piece of mass-production with their name inserted at a regular interval.

   I’m all for reading with my child, having fun, and building their self-confidence, but this seems like a pretty two-dimensional way to go about it. After all, how would that child feel if they saw another kid with the same “special” story only with different names in it?

   Wouldn’t it inspire REAL self-esteem and confidence for them to take part in the creation of a story about themselves, preferably with the help of parents, siblings, grandparents, etc.?

   As parents, we are CONSTANTLY barraged with offers for products that will help us raise/be closer to/inspire our kids. When push comes to shove, no pre-packaged book or toy or video, no matter how carefully some “expert” designed it, can take the place of simple, direct interaction with your kids.

   Be there. Take part. Don’t let anyone tell you you need some mass-produced THING to make your time with your child more meaningful.

   July 11th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
2. Rachel says:
   

   Ooo, Alice, what a neat idea — or, given how easy desktop publishing is these days, a parent could make a special story about their kid and surprise them with it on a birthday… like scrapbook, but with narrative…

   July 12th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
3. Hanoch says:
   

   Many years ago (when my 34 year old was 6 and my 32 year old was 4) I began ‘writing books’ with both children. We began with a book called “That’s Ridiculous!” which was written one page at a time, with Polaroid pictures [digital hadn’t been invented yet] of things each child thought were ridiculous, silly, funny, odd or just made us laugh. Sometimes it was a thing they could do, model, imitate, act out and we’d do it in front of the camera. Then we’d tell a story about it. I served as their ’secretary’, writing what they said down on the page and then we’d paste the picture onto the page, put it into a plastic protective cover, and place it into the looseleaf binder. The book grew and grew, as they found more and more to be worth their attention. Eventually, it filled several binders. One of my friends knew of this project and mentioned it when being interviewed by some journalist and it ended up in a story in the Reader’s Digest!

   We wrote books about our Summer camping trips and about family events. Gradually, as the kids became able to read and write on their own, their handwriting replaced mine in the binders. What fun we had. What a bonding experience. Both of them write very well today and one is an editor-in-chief of a major publication today. About to have his 32nd birthday, too.

   Much better, I think, than those commercial ‘personalized’ books.

   Have a great day. I love this website.

   September 10th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
4. Lori says:
   

   We write our own family stories and the children even illustrate the books . It is great for them to see what they can do, then read it in a published book. We write family histories, funny stories that happen to us and make up stories too. It is a great way for our children to teach me computer skills, learn photography ,explore artisic tallents and be as creative as they want. We make posters,and by using the digital photo editing software we can create layers on one page. each day brings fresh ideas…thanks for all of the inspiration on this website.

   September 12th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
5. natasha says:
   

   Hanoch thats a fantastic idea and much more fun. i have been meaning to do this with my children for ages. we have made books together. they really like the cutting and sticking etc
   We tell them stories at bedtime and recently the older one (dd 4yr) has been asking me to ‘read’ her a story without the book, in other words shes been asking for more homemade stories. i was surprised when she started doing this as she likes to pick up books all the time, but it is easier as we can turn the lights out!

   our next step though will be to make our own personalized books, i keep putting it off because i want the nice paper and the nice pics! silly as the children will enjoy it anyway.

   October 9th, 2006 at 3:41 am
6. HeatherLee Sutherland says:
   

   Kind of in line with stories: My daughter (5 years) her favorite part of our night time routine, is after the storybooks. First she sings me a lullabye (in perfect tune to the Brahams Lullabye) she makes it up as she goes and never misses a note! Then (whoever is putting her to bed, has to do the same (much more difficult and not nearly close to good). The words end up being either a review of the day, a lesson learned or something about the future. It is a time when we all reflect on the day we’ve had and the one we will have tomorrow.

   HeatherLee

   November 11th, 2006 at 10:04 am
7. silvana says:
   

   My children are still not reading on their own. When I read to them I sub their names for some of the characters. The giggles are priceless. Every book we read is about them.

   January 26th, 2007 at 10:53 am
8. Ally says:
   

   All very good ideas.

   February 9th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
9. Wendy says:
   

   At bedtime we read a book, then we invent a mouth story. Our son is 3.5 and it is an interactive story where he names the characters and fills in parts of the very simple plot. We always try to have a simple ‘moral’ like sharing.

   We also created his bedtime book. He made a list of all the things he needs to do to get ready for bedtime, we put them in chronological order (with later changes so snack came before brushing teeth then we took pictures of him posing for each. He loves looking at himself in his bed time book and saying ‘check’ and turning to the next page.

   March 16th, 2007 at 10:50 am
10. My-Personal-Growth.com says:
    

    My-Personal-Growth.com

    I would encourage folks to not jump off of my explanation into a conversation about self- esteem/ education but to read the book and then let\’s discuss. The tendency to take a topic and discuss in abstraction rather than reading the book is one of t…

    May 2nd, 2008 at 2:09 am
11. Sign language Books says:
    

    As a new parent, i have found personalised books an excellent way of communicating with my child. I never thought the books were badly written, although after reading the comments above, maybe there is an arguement.

    All I can say is that my young girl enjoys the experience more than any other normal book I have read to her, so therefore that is enough for me, poor story or not.

    For me, it is worth the extra price, not to mention the amount of times I have to tell the story.

    Mark

    July 2nd, 2008 at 5:02 am

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