Personalised books for kids: an honest guide

Few presents are recognised as theirs before a child has read a single word. A personalised book is one of them. Their name is on the cover, a character who looks like them is inside, and the story is about them. That is why these books are so popular, and why so many companies make them.

This guide looks at four of the best known in the UK, fairly and from their own websites, and then at a different idea altogether: a story that arrives in letters. We make the letters, so we will say so when we get there, and keep that part short.

What actually differs between them

Before comparing companies, it helps to know what to compare.

How personal it is. Some books change the name and little else. Others let you build the child’s look: skin tone, hair, eyes, glasses. A few let you add a brother, a grandparent or the dog. The more of a child’s real life is in the book, the more it feels like theirs.

Who wrote and drew it. A personalised book is still a book, and the writing and pictures matter as much as the name on the cover. Look at the sample pages, not just the preview of your child’s character.

The format. Softcover or hardcover, the size, the page count. A hardcover survives being read every night for a year.

Time. Each of these books is made to order, so check how long printing and posting take, especially before a birthday or Christmas.

The price on the day. Personalised books are often on sale, so the figure you see this week may not be the one you see next week.

Wonderbly

Wonderbly is one of the best known names in the category in the UK, the company that began as Lost My Name (it still trades as Lostmy.name Ltd). Its UK shop has books for new babies, siblings, birthdays and Christmas, and you can browse by age, occasion and who the book is for. On the day we looked, every book on its front page started from £24.99.

Its strength is the writing. The site says award-winning authors, illustrators and translators craft its books, and that its books have delighted over 10 million readers since 2013. If you want a polished picture book in which the story itself is the thing, Wonderbly is the obvious place to begin.

Librio

Librio’s personalised picture books put a strong focus on how the character looks, and on language. For its book The Tree, the Key and Me you choose the child’s name, skin tone, eye colour, hair colour and style, and can add glasses, which Librio says makes over 8,000 possible combinations. That book has 38 pages, comes in softcover or hardcover, and has a dedication printed on the first page.

Its UK site lists its books from £24.99, says they are printed in Britain on recycled paper, and offers every book in English, German and Spanish, with more languages for some titles. For a family that speaks more than one language at home, that is a real reason to choose it.

Hooray Heroes

Hooray Heroes covers a lot of ground: books for children, babies, parents, couples and even pets. For a child, its UK site lets you set skin tone, hair style and colour, eye shape and colour, glasses and freckles, then pick which stories go into the book and in which order, and add a dedication.

On the day we looked, most of its books were shown at £24.99 against £49.99, and the site says they are printed and shipped from the UK. It also says it has sold over 3 million books worldwide. Its distinctive idea is the choice of stories: you build the book as much as personalise it.

Dinkleboo

Dinkleboo makes personalised story books for young children, and its UK site is clear about what it does and does not do. Every book carries the child’s name; some let you set gender, hair, eyes and skin tone; and some let you add up to four more characters, such as siblings, friends, parents or grandparents. It does not use real photos. You choose soft or hard cover and a size, and it says books leave its factory in Wakefield within one to three working days.

On the day we looked, a sale had its story books from £13.99 against £27.99. The books with grandparents and siblings in them make it a good fit for a present from the wider family.

So which one?

There is no single best personalised book. Go to Wonderbly for the writing, Librio for the character builder and the languages, Hooray Heroes for choosing the stories yourself, and Dinkleboo for the family characters and the price. All four make a lovely present. And all four are books: one object, given on the day, kept on the shelf.

A story in letters is a different thing

This is where we come in, briefly and honestly. We do not make books. Journee makes personalised story letters: a story told in chapters and posted to the child one letter at a time, in an envelope with their name on the front. The child is the hero and the people they love are written in. The stories and their worlds are written and drawn by our team, and most letters are read by a person before they are posted.

That makes letters good at different things. A book is ready on the day; letters take weeks to arrive, which is the whole point of them, and the excitement is spread across a season instead of a single morning. A book tells every child with that title the same story; a letter can end on a choice, so the next chapter goes the way the child picked. If you want one keepsake to hand over at a party, buy a book. If you want something that keeps arriving, you can see how the letters work on our personalised letters page.

Whichever you choose, the best personalised present is the one that knows something true about the child. Their name is only the start of it.