A personalised book about tidying up

Tidying up is rarely what children most want to do – and often not grown-ups either. Yet there's something deeply satisfying about watching a room go from chaos to order, and about knowing where the blue car lives. A picture book can turn picking up into a game with rules your child understands: everything has a home, and things are happy when they get back there. If your child is the one who puts everything right in the story, it becomes easier to start for real, ideally with the book lying open on the floor beside them.

A tidying book can turn the room into a town where every toy has an address: the cars live in the garage under the bed, the cuddly toys in the basket by the window, the bricks in the red box. Perhaps something has gone missing and must be found before evening, or it becomes a race against an egg timer. The toys can have opinions of their own: the train that wants to stand nearest the window, the teddy who refuses to lie underneath the cars. The story can also show how lovely it is when the floor is clear – so there's finally room to build the great den of blankets and chairs.

Describe your child's real toys and where they tend to end up. Is it the dinosaurs that always lie in the hall, or the beads that scatter across the whole floor? Do you have boxes, a shelf or a sack under the bed? If your child shares a room with a brother or sister, they can tidy together – or squabble a little over whose sock it is. And the dog who loves running off with a slipper can make things even trickier. If your child has one thing that must never go missing, that can be the very thing that's lost in the story until everything else is in its place.

At 0–2, tidying is a game of in and out: the brick into the box, the lid on. At 3–5, one kind of thing at a time goes a long way – first the cars, then the animals. A child of 6–9 can be given a mission with a plan and a map of the room, and at 10+ tidying can be the starting gun for a mystery, when something that has been lost for ages suddenly turns up.

After reading, stick pictures on the boxes so it's clear what lives in each one. Let your child decide where one or two things belong, and make up your own tidying song. Why not turn it into a secret mission where every thing picked up earns a clue?

You fill in the child's name, age and what they like, and upload a photo. The story about tidying up 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.