The absolute best!! What could be better then writing a story for your grandchild – and making them the hero of the story – complete with pictures?
I must admit it took a while for this side adventure to dawn on me, but when it did, talk about motivating! I have to warn you, it takes more than bit of planning. Not so much a problem if you keep it super simple. Write it and print it out, get a picture of them enlarged to the book size (they have to be on the cover) and put it together yourself. A second option could be to get it printed out and bound from somewhere like Staples. Of course having it done by amazon is a good option and inexpensive – if you do all the work (formatting) yourself.
All that assumes it is going to be strictly a storybook without pictures. Making it a picture book, which obviously is best for the youngins, adds a whole new dimension – ultimately to their enjoyment (especially if they are young) and a whole new degree of difficulty and expense to you if, like me, you are not too tech savvy. However, it must be obvious how exciting it is for them to SEE themselves their on the page in the story.
First, give lots of thought to your grandchild. What are they like? What do they like? What is their favorite expression? Give a lot of thought to what kind of adventure they could see themselves in. And you have to be sneaky, especially if it’s going to be a picture book, for you will have to take lots of pictures under false pretences. Get your grandson or granddaughter to do a muscle pose. Have them look surprised. Take pictures of them running. Take background pictures to use – even without them in the pictures and photo shop the little darlings into the background. I used shots taken on our Mediterranean trip: mountains, caves, all sorts of interesting backgrounds that suited my adventure story for them.
Before all this you need to rough out the story so you have an idea of the pictures you need. Sometimes, if you have random pictures of them or a background that is awesome and you want to use it, you can always adjust the storyline.
I used Tatiana, my cover person, to do the photo shopping of the images and to do the cover. It did cost a bit more than I had thought, but that was part of the learning curve. I learned a lot doing the one for my granddaughter and like anything, the second effort, for my grandson, went a lot smoother.
The bottom line was that I will never forget the look of astonishment on their faces when they discovered it among some library books I had taken over to read to them. It’s a memory I will cherish.
Give it some thought. I know you won’t be disappointed.
