A personalized children’s book, made from a photo

Most personalized books swap a name into a fixed template. TaleBuilder writes a new story from your prompt and draws your child into every page, so the book is about them, not just addressed to them. Browse the catalog to see finished examples.

How the photo becomes a character

You can describe a character in words (“a seven-year-old with curly red hair and a green raincoat”) or upload a photo. With a photo, this is what happens:

1. The photo is used as the primary reference and the character is drawn from it in the art style you chose, so the likeness comes from the photo and the look comes from the style.
2. A turnaround sheet is generated for the character, showing them from several angles, and it is split into four separate views.
3. The drawn character is analyzed and turned into a detailed written description, which is used along with the views to keep the character consistent on every page.
4. You see the character before the book is written and can revise it if the first version is not right.

Group photos. One photo of several children works too. The background is removed, the people in the photo are counted and numbered, and each one is extracted as a separate character. Up to six people can be pulled from a single photo.

What a finished book contains

• A title page, ten illustrated story pages, and a back cover.
• Text written to the guided reading level you pick, from A (kindergarten) through the elementary grades, so a child can read it themselves.
• A vocabulary list: words from the story, each with a definition and the sentence it appears in.
• Your child’s character drawn consistently from page to page, along with any supporting characters you added.

Art styles

There are dozens of art styles to choose from, and you can also upload an image of your own to use as a custom style. The style is applied to the characters first, then to the whole book, so the pages and the hero match.

Revisions

Every book includes 5 image revisions. If one page is off, regenerate that page with a note about what to change, without touching the rest of the book.

Print quality

Books are generated at 1K resolution by default, which is right for screens. If you plan to print, choose the print-quality option when you create the book to get 2K images; it costs 3 extra acorns and takes longer. Ordering a printed copy directly from TaleBuilder is not available yet; a finished book has a waitlist you can join.

Pricing

A book costs 11 acorns, and one acorn is $0.25, so a standard book is about $2.75 and a print-quality book is about $3.50. New accounts get one book free.