My kids love to hear stories about themselves. We talk about when they were babies, about how tiny Henry was when he was born and how we could see Charlie sucking his thumb on the ultrasounds. We talk about their first steps and first words; Henry particularly likes the story of how Charlie, at 18 months, would announce, “CLOTHES ARE DRY!” every time he heard a buzzing noise. Personally, I liked when he called out “DINNER’S READY!” each time the microwave dinged.
A few years ago, my parents gave the boys some Personalized Storybooks for Christmas. Henry’s was a Disney’s Winnie the Pooh book that included him in Pooh’s adventures; Charlie’s was about traveling back to the time of dinosaurs, and included the memorable line, “I am Charlie, from the future.” The boys liked these books, because their names were in them, but Charlie wanted to know why his picture wasn’t in the book, and eventually Henry caught on that his story was just a bastardized version of A. A. Milne’s stories. And I thought that was the end of personalized books.
But a week or so ago, we received Charlie’s personalized copy of The Robots of Sedna, and the boys love it. When I ordered the book, I was able to specify eye and hair color, and to indicate that Charlie wore glasses. I was also able to include Henry and Charlie’s friend Cate in the story, which both kids love.
The book itself is very sweet; Charlie is the captain of a spaceship, and he saves the galaxy from a pair of fairly ineffective bad guys. The main character is courageous and cheerful, and there is no violence at all, just lots of good problem solving (and one rocket crash, in which no one is hurt). The story has a nice moral–”Your family and friends know you are one of a kind!”–and the illustrations are bright and cheerful.
The book comes with a cd, which I found kind of meh. A recorded voice reads the story, complete with a ding sound that tells kids when to turn the page (remember that?). Charlie didn’t like that the voices were wrong; the Charlie in the story sounds like a girl, and the voice of Cate is clearly a boy. Plus, this particular cd includes a selection of songs, all of which have a kind of 1970s hippie musical feel to them (think songs that didn’t make it into Godspell). And the songs are looooonnnnng. The first time we listened to it, I dozed off and Charlie wandered away to play, all during the first song. Henry, however, LOVES the cd; he sits with the book in his lap and follows the story and shushes anyone who talks during the music. So it is possible that Charlie and I are just missing the point of this part of the package. Or that we’re too cynical to enjoy the hippie songs about being brave and special.
My kids spend a lot of time pretending that they are characters in the stories we read; it’s been fun to read a story where they really ARE characters. I’m just hoping they don’t start singing those songs.
