A personalised book about moving house

Moving house stirs up everything a child takes for granted: where the bed goes, which way you walk to nursery, who lives next door. Even when the move is something to look forward to, it can feel strange to watch your room empty out. A book about moving house lets your child go through the change in advance, at a calm pace, as the one who is brave enough to go first. They get to see their old room and their new one, pack their own box and knock on the new neighbours' door. The book builds a bridge between what you leave behind and where you are going.

A story about moving can take your child through the whole change: choosing what comes along and what can go to someone else, riding in the removal van, sleeping the first night in a place where everything sounds different. It can let your child find something in the new place – a hidden spot in the garden, a neighbour the same age, a cat that seems to live on the stairs.

And it can let the old home live on as a memory your child carries with them, rather than something that simply vanished. Moving day itself is full of pictures: tape that screeches as it comes off the roll, a sofa looking odd out on the pavement, pizza on the floor of an empty kitchen.

The more your child recognises, the safer the story feels. Tell us what the new home is – a flat, a house, another town, another country – and what your child already knows about it: a room with a sloping ceiling, a playground outside, a new nursery. Add one thing from the old home that your child is especially fond of and let it travel all the way through the story.

If your child is leaving a friend behind, the friend can have a place too, perhaps as the one who gets letters from the new home. If your child will be living in two homes from now on, the book can be about exactly that, calmly and without any grown-up taking centre stage.

Little children mostly need to hear that the grown-ups and the cuddly toys are coming too. Five-year-olds enjoy counting the boxes and seeing who carries what. For a school-age child it can take a few pages before the new place feels like home, and ten-year-olds can handle a book that says straight out that it is fine to miss things.

Talk about what your child would like to have in the new room. If the missing lingers, a book about feeling homesick might be a good next step.

You fill in the child's name, age and what they like, and upload a photo. The story about moving house is written for your very own child, and the thirteen pictures and the cover are drawn from the photo in the style you choose. Brothers and sisters, parents, grandparents or the pet can come along, up to five characters. If you would like to include something that has happened lately, a trip or a lost tooth, just write it and it is woven in.

The eBook is ready a few minutes after payment. Read it, change the text and ask for new pictures until you are happy. Then order it as an A4 hardback book, printed and sent to your door, or straight to the child as a gift. Do add the audiobook or the colouring pages. Start creating the book or read more about the prices. Would you like to see a finished book before you decide? Browse our example books.