October 20 - 26, 2019: Issue 425
Story Antics: Personalised Books For Children You Can Create Online
Manly Mum Kellie Marks was forever being asked by her two-year-old daughter to use her name to replace the characters in her favourite story books. A hardware developer by trade, Kellie took this problem and teamed with her friend and fellow Manly resident, award winning serial entrepreneur Lara Solomon. Together they set out to create a platform that could personalise children’s books quickly and easily online. As a result, Story Antics was born with the website launched on October 11th - visit: storyantics.com
How it works
On the Story Antics platform, the creator can choose a story template they think will resonate with the child the book will be gifted to, personalise the storyline by replacing the characters with the child and friends names, and in a matter of minutes, your child will have a story book in which they are the star! And if that wasn’t enough, the creator can even change how the character looks.
Story Antics is all about unique quirky stories, some written by Kellie and Lara, that children will love. They include titles such as Alfie’s Present, a Christmas story in which Alfie (or your child’s name) hands out presents to everyone, but thinks that he has been forgotten.
In another book, “Monster Macarons,” three friends go for a walk in the woods with their cat, only to come across a monster who wants to eat them. There’s even a recycling story about a bin chicken who hangs out in the park because he has nowhere else to go.
It is not just the quirkiness that makes the Story Antics stories fabulous, but the illustrations. Each story has hand drawn pictures by a single illustrator, adding to their uniqueness.
“We wanted to create fun quirky personalised stories that the adult and child would both enjoy, we all know that if a book becomes a favourite you are reading it at least 10 times a day!” says Lara.
Why Personalised Story Books for Kids?
By Lara Solomon
You may think that personalised story books for kids are just a gimmicky present, targeted at Aunties, Uncles, Grannies, Grandpa’s etc as an easy solution for a present! Of course, you may already be really informed and know why personalised story books for kids are actually GREAT! Here’s why….
More Engaging
Research shows that children who read (or are read) stories that they feature in are more engaged. That means that they are listening better, taking in the words, paying attention and getting more from the time you are spending with them than when you read a regular book. This is because young children are very much “all about me” – have you noticed when you read a story about a little boy or girl that sounds or looks like them they ask “is that me?” They don’t know much about the wider world, and hence think that they are the centre of the world they live in.
Learn Better
The Raising Children website sums really well the benefits of reading to children,
“- Help your child get to know sounds, words and language, and develop early literacy skills
– Spark your child’s imagination and stimulate curiosity
– Help your child’s brain, social skills and communication skills develop
– Help your child learn the difference between ‘real’ and ‘make-believe’
– Help your child understand change and new or frightening events, and also the strong emotions that can go along with them”
When the benefits of reading are paired with a personalised story book for kids the learning is actually BETTER than with a non-personalised story.
Fun
Not just fun for the child to read or be read to, but also fun for you to create your personalised story book. Often as adults we get bogged down in the seriousness of the day to day and forget to have fun, and do those things that we enjoy and/or use creativity. Creating a book stimulates the creative part of your brain as you work out what characters, what they look like, how you want to customise the story and have fun putting your amazing story together.
Dot to Dot Fun
It’s hard to find interesting indoor activities that don’t involve screens, so we have created special Story Antics dot to dot’s featuring the characters from our stories! Each week a different dot to dot will be posted on our Facebook page for you (or your child :)) to download free, fill in and colour.
What’s So Great about Dot to Dot?
Dot to dot’s are great for:
– learning to count, going from 1 to 2 to 3 etc helps children learn their numbers
– Hand to eye coordination, using a pencil or pen to move from one dot to the next
– Using imagination/creativity, ask the child to guess what they are going to draw before they start
– Great non-screen time that is fun
Once your dot to dot is completed, please colour it in and share it on our Facebook page or on Instagram so we can see what wild and wonderful pictures you have created.
Create Your Own Book
Story Antics books are available online at www.StoryAntics.com.
Create a story where your child is the star in just two minutes. Once your story is complete you can save it (for free) to read online as an ebook or pay $39.99 for it to be printed and sent to you in the mail.
Each book is A4 landscape (29.7cm wide by 21cm tall), 28 pages of story and 34 pages in total with the front and back cover and a dedication page.
It will be around 2 weeks from when you order to when you get your book. Once the order comes in we will send it over to the printer, when it comes back we will check it to make sure it is an awesome as we promised you! If there are any problems at this stage we will get in touch – there is nothing more annoying than not knowing what is going on. Once your book is carefully packed we will pop it in the mail and you will get an email to say that your order has been sent.
If you’re wondering what to buy your child for Christmas this year -- a Story Antics book is the perfect present.
About Kellie And Lara And The Story Antics Team
Lara Solomon - Chief Story Teller
Lara is one of the founders behind Story Antics, with a lifetime love of reading, published author, and writer of 4 children’s stories for friends and family Lara loves being creative. Before Story Antics, Lara founded award winning business Mocks (mobile phone socks), started and sold a social media agency and created LOLL poncho towels. Needless to say Lara loves the challenge that comes with a new business.
Kellie Marks - Chief Tech Character
Kellie is the tech whizz behind Story Antics, with a background in hardware and phone chips (it is way more complicated than we have described it!). Mum of two lovely girls aged 2 and 6 (great for market research) Kellie is a pro at reading stories. The time Kellie spends reading with her girls is one of her favourite times of day and she particularly enjoys reading quirky books with strong female characters.
Kellie’s favourite book: "The Bear and the Piano" by David Litchfield
Lara's favourite book: "Each Peach Pear Plum" by Janet and Ahlberg
Story Antics Team
The rest of our team is made up of fabulous illustrators, such as Kat and Fox, Interns from UTS who work on the book illustrations mentored by Kat and our amazing team of supporters, helpers, advisers, readers and YOU!
We love hearing from you about what you want, what you like (and don’t like).
We have big plans over the next few years, watch this space (or join our newsletter) to keep up to date on what is happening next – the launch is only the start of this story!
