How it works
One photograph, then a book they keep.
Five steps, in the order they happen. Nothing is charged until step five, and step five is optional.
We keep the photograph of your child, so we can draw them again. Hardcover $40.00 plus shipping and tax, both shown before you pay.
A house demo book. Ana Sofía is a child we invented.
What actually happens, in order.
One
Pick one of the two stories
Two worlds are open, both finished, both illustrated, both print-ready. You can read either one all the way through before you pick — there is a whole book of each on this site, free, with no account. Nothing about this step is a preview.
Two
Give a first name and one photograph
A first name or nickname, their birthday — it chooses the reading level, now and as they grow — and one photograph. No surname, no school, no address. The photograph is the step people want to understand before they take it, so here it is in full, in exactly the words the privacy policy uses.
You upload one photograph of your child, and only a verified parent or guardian may upload it.
We use that photograph for one thing: to draw a character sheet — an original illustration of your child in our house style.
We keep that photograph, for as long as you have an account. Every illustration is drawn from the character sheet rather than from the photograph, and we keep the photograph so that a new picture, or a whole new book, can be drawn for your child later without asking you to upload it again.
The photograph is kept in private storage with no web address of any kind: there is no link to it, nothing on this website can request it, and no search engine can find it. It is never published, and it is never shown to anybody outside our own systems.
The photograph is never used to train any model, ours or anyone else’s, never sold, and never sent anywhere except the image provider that draws the character sheet.
Illustrations are generated by an AI image model from your photograph, art-directed and reviewed by us against a fixed house style.
You can have the photograph deleted at any time, and you do not have to close your account to do it: uploading a different photo destroys the old one, and removing a child from your account destroys their photograph with their character sheet. Deleting your account deletes the photograph, the character sheet and every illustration made from it, and the deletion receipt counts them.
Three
We draw your child into the story
First a character sheet — one original illustration of your child in our house style — and then the book’s fifteen paintings, every one of them drawn from that sheet, so it is the same child in every scene rather than a family resemblance. That takes minutes, not seconds, and the screen counts the real minutes rather than showing you a spinner. You do not have to sit through it: close the tab and the drawing carries on by itself, and we e-mail you the moment the book is ready to read.
Four
Read the first half, free
Every page of the first half, full size, no watermark, nothing blurred, in the same reader the demo books are open in. Not the book you hoped for? Close the tab and owe nothing — no card has been asked for at any point up to here. Want the rest? Either keepsake opens it.
Five
Keep it, if it earned a place on the shelf
Only now does money come up, and only if you want it to. Before you order the hardcover you page through a print proof with the cut edge of the paper, the margin nothing important may cross and the fold at the centre all drawn on it, and you can download that proof to inspect yourself. One action approves the exact file the press receives — and if a single word changes afterwards, the approval is void and you approve again.
What comes out
One spread from Ana Sofía’s book, exactly as it prints.
The picture sits inside a thin printed border, the way a plate is tipped into an old picture book. The words sit on clean paper opposite, never on the artwork.
The forest stirs
Now the trick was easy. Another lantern bloomed warm and gold. Two lights held the dark back.
Then — a sound in the trees. Someone was frightened. A young deer stood shaking. Her fawn pressed close. Ana Sofía walked slowly in front, all the way home.
Lantern Wood · A house demo book. Ana Sofía is a child we invented.
Every illustration in your book is generated by an AI image model from the photograph you upload, then checked page by page against your child’s character sheet so the same child appears in every scene.
Why we need a photograph at all
Your child is drawn, not named.
Your child is drawn, not named. One photograph becomes a character sheet — an original illustration of your child in our house style — and every picture in the book is drawn from that sheet, so it is the same child on every page. We keep the photograph, privately, so the next book can be drawn from it too.
Half is free. The rest comes with a keepsake.
The first half of the finished book is free to read, and completely clean: every page of it, no watermark, nothing blurred. The rest of the story is behind either keepsake — the digital file or the hardcover — and nothing is charged until you choose one.
Shipping and delivery, before you decide
Order today, arrives:
- Ground, tracked
- Thu, Oct 29 – Wed, Nov 4
- 6–10 business days: printing, then transit. The default. Tracked door to door.
- Expedited, tracked
- Wed, Oct 28 – Mon, Nov 2
- 5–8 business days: printing, then transit. Offered wherever the carrier reaches, priced at cost, with its own gift-by date.
Shipping is quoted live from the printer for your address and passed on at exactly their price — no markup, ever. The carrier, the amount, the tax and the delivery dates are all on screen before you enter a card.
Buying for a birthday? Count back from the day of the party in working days, not calendar days: 10 business days for the tracked ground service and 8 for expedited, worst case. Order by then and it arrives with days in hand; both dates are on screen again at checkout for the address you enter.
The one number not on this page is the shipping itself. We will not print a figure we would have to guess at: it is quoted from the printer for your address, shown in full with the tax and the total before anything is irreversible, and you can leave at that screen.
Reprint or refund, thirty days after it arrives.
For two hours after you order, cancel yourself in one click for a full refund — nothing has been printed yet. After that the book is manufactured, and the guarantee still holds: if what arrives is damaged, mis-bound or simply not the book you approved, we reprint it or refund it for thirty days from the day it lands.
Start with step one.
About ten minutes tonight: a minute to reach the photograph step, a few minutes while your child is drawn — the screen counts the real minutes rather than showing you a spinner — and the rest of it reading the finished book together. Nothing before step five involves a card.