Completely Customizable Children’s Book with Trueberry Books {Review and Giveaway}

Posted November 20, 2012 by Janelle with 51 Comments and 2,793 views | -

I’ve seen several companies promoting customizable children’s books but never one quite like what Trueberry Books offers. Other books allow you to add your child’s name to a story that is prewritten. Trueberry Books also offers the option of a prewritten story for those of you who want that option but they also provide COMPLETE customization. Read that again. Complete customization. Expand on what they’ve provided or write your own story!

Trueberry Books offer three titles to chose from for your customizable children’s book.

Doink, Lolli-P and Their Best Friend [Your Child's Name]
Twinkleberry and [Your Child's Name]
The Incredible Adventures of [Your Child's Name] and Flappity Jack.

I chose the beautiful fairy story. I preferred to write my children’s story 100% myself. I love the beauty in each detail of this page! The three little gowns remind me of my little ones. Notice the orange areas where they offer tips on how to change a picture or add an inset image of your own as I did above.

I was a little disappointed that some of the illustrations were far less detailed than this one almost as if another illustrator did them. My only other negative critique is that the actual printed text is a bit smaller than the preview page and on the pages that I didn’t provide an inset image the text moved from the center of the page to the upper corner which looked odd.

Here is an example of the prewritten text I could have chosen to expand on instead. You can still customize dates and stories about your child that only you would know (their favorite foods, how they were named, their birth date/story) as well as inset images of those special moments. Each book is 23 pages long and if one of the images isn’t quite right for your story you have the option to switch it out with a few other illustration choices.

This video shows exactly how the online interface works. It was very quick and simple (other than the creative brainstorming and editing it took for me to write the story and chose the perfect inset images). *Note: I had some trouble using the book interface in Safari but Google Chrome worked perfectly.

This book opportunity was bittersweet but healing for me. I tried sitting down with Nora to have HER write the book as she looked at the pages (Another creative idea if you want a keepsake with your kids! Let THEM be the authors!) but she wasn’t interested at the moment. My heart just kept leading me back to the babies I lost in February. None of the prewritten pages made sense for them. I let my heart sit with it for a few days and when I looked back at the options the fairy story just stood out as the right choice – but the little fairy became an angel in my mind. My little angel Alice.

My daughter Alice Mae was diagnosed with spina bifida at her 20 week ultrasound. Her brother and sister (triplets) were both healthy and fine but little Alice was not. I lost all three at 22 weeks. This beautiful book gave me a way to share part of her story with her big sister, Nora.

I’d love to share some of my favorite pages and the beautiful illustrations from Trueberry Books here. I’ve posted the entire book on my personal blog blessedwithmore.wordpress.com if you’d care to read more.

All illustrations are ©Leyla Akdogan and Trueberry Books. All text is ©Janelle Wourms. Please respect those copyrights but feel free to share this post with your friends or others who have lost a child. Maybe this is a way that you could remember your little one as well?

“Alice Mae: An Angel Tale” By Janelle Wourms, Illustrated by Leyla Akdogan, via Trueberry Books.

In Heaven lives an angel. Her name is Alice Mae. Her family loves her oh so much but watched her fly away.

She paints the skies at sunset and makes bubbles on the beach. She flies above the water leaving clouds of orange and peach.

Alice Mae loves to play, especially pretend. “Won’t you come and join us now? Remember, bring a friend!”

Happily ever after is in Heaven up above, forever spreading joy and sharing God’s true love.

We love you Alice Mae, Elliot Nathan and Alexis Marie. We think of you every day and wish you were in our arms. May you be in peace in Heaven today with your siblings playing and giggling!

BUY IT:

Create and purchase your own book at trueberrybooks.com for $34.95

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Win your own completely customizable children’s book from Trueberry Books. This would be a great gift for a loved one!

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Disclosure: I received a sample for the purpose of this review however all thoughts remain 100% my own.

Completely Customizable Children’s Book with Trueberry Books {Review and Giveaway}

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