our story
Training minds and imagination to think big.
Short version: I was left in charge of entertaining the kids while Mama was running an errand on a cold, wet, and miserable day in upstate New York.
Our kids' main entertainment is reading books. And we love books in all forms, paper, digital … papyrus.
So we decided to create a book for fun. The kids begged for their own book. We were lost in a world of magic for hours.
Long(er) version: Hi, my name is Vali. I'm a transplant to the United States from a tiny country, Moldova.
I didn't grow up reading books for fun, but I can see the value of what I missed out on in my developmental years.
I started this project accidentally together with my five children on a cold, cold weekend in upstate New York.
My wife left to run an errand. While she was gone, I had to entertain the children.
We played a bit with creating books, and one thing led to another. Before we knew it, the whole family had spent hours creating books together.
To my surprise, the kids kept on asking me to create custom-made books for each one of them.
As an adult I realized that I have some learning challenges. I have some form of ADHD and learning the traditional way comes harder for me. I have trouble with focusing on one task.
I couldn't believe how this project had me glued to my chair for hours, and I still can't get enough of it.
I plan to keep this experiment going with the hope that it will help my children with their developmental process and hopefully inspire other families to do the same.
You see, we believe in the power of books to shape destinies. It all starts with a love for stories, good stories. Instill that into your kids at an earlier age.
We can't get enough of stories in our house. The older (reading) kids plow through books like you wouldn't believe. The younger (not-yet-reading) kids are constantly begging us to read them a book.
A trip to the local library usually sees us bringing home a huge stack of books that they've already finished reading by bedtime or the next day at the latest.
And our local library, though wonderful, is a small town library with a limited selection. We end up bringing home the same books multiple times.
There's no way we could afford to buy enough books to keep the kids supplied with reading material, even if we could find shelf space for that many books.
A digital repository of free books seems like the perfect solution.
And then there's the other side of it, where not only do the kids love to read books, but we want to help them develop a love for the creative process of making books. Planning, writing, illustrating - the whole shebang.
But it's not nearly as much fun to create books if no one else is going to enjoy them. We want to enable kids (and anyone) to create stories that they can share with others.
Books are meant to be shared, share your book with us.
Dream with us.
😀
Vali, Dreamer
ps: Since starting this project, I’ve been writing more than I have in my entire life (almost), and I'm not sure who's having more fun, me or the kids.
pps: Stories are meant to be shared, what's more social than that?!