MJM Personalized Children's Books - MORE Customized

by Jeff Jablonski
(Chicago)

Picture books personalized for gender, hair color, skin color and more

This site asks about personalized children's books, "will your child be fooled into thinking the story is actually about them?" This question is central to my philosophy as a writer and creator of customizable children's books.

When I was very young, I received a book that told the story of how I met Santa Claus! I did?! Even at the tender age of 4, I knew that someone was trying to pull one over on me.

So when I created my first book, "If I Were Big," for my niece (and every other book in the MJMBOOKS catalogue), I made sure that I didn't condescend to her by keeping the following things in mind.

RULE 1: No past tense. Why tell your child a lie about something that never happened to them? Why not spark their imagination with the possibility of the future or present?

RULE 2: Books about kids should be about KIDS. Young children are egomaniacs. They are the center of their own Universe, and I crafted my books to reflect that worldview. They don't discover bugs with Cookie Monster, they discover themselves.

RULE 3: Personalized picture books need PERSONALIZED PICTURES! Many customized books out there recycle out-of-print books from the 80's with formulaic stories designed to splatter a child's name, address, and teddy bear's name all over the book. But where is the child? To create our line of customizable books, our artists crafted hundreds of possible combination options such as gender, hair color, skin tone, etc. to allow for parents to insert their child into the ILLUSTRATIONS as well.

Our books are ORIGINAL stories designed to be read to the child with what I call, "Hug-Inducing" endings for bed or story time. They are printed on 100% recycled paper and cost $15.95. Come learn more about MJMBOOKS's philosophy of "Making Reading Fun" and see how we are trying to change the way kids interact with books from passive listener to active participant.

Jeff Jablonski, Author

MJM Books - Customized and personalized children's books.