Made for one child, and nobody else

Why we started

Children’s presents blur together. The same toys arrive, the same outfits, the same envelopes, and a month later nobody remembers which came from whom.

We got tired of buying them. So we made the one that does not blur — a story with a child’s name running through it, the thing they are obsessed with this year written into the plot, and the people they love on the page beside them.

A toy gets outgrown. A book with their name in it gets kept.

How a book gets made

The story and the illustrations are generated. We say so plainly, on the site and in the FAQ, because you would find out anyway and because it is not the part that matters.

What matters is what happens next. A person opens the book and reads it end to end, against a written safety policy, before it is sent. No book reaches a child unread.

That review is why a book takes two to four hours instead of two minutes. It is also the thing you are buying.

Why bother

A story made in seconds can get a child’s name right and still get the child wrong. It can wander somewhere frightening. It can flatten a family into a stock photo, or spell a name the way a dictionary prefers rather than the way a parent chose.

None of that shows up in a preview. It shows up at bedtime.

So somebody checks. Every page, every time — and if something is wrong, the book goes back and gets made again before you ever see it.

What we will not do

Send a book nobody has read. There is no faster tier that skips the review. The review is the product.

Keep your child’s photograph. Photos are used to draw your child as a storybook character, then deleted once the book is delivered. What stays is the drawing, not the photograph. You can skip photos entirely and describe your child instead.

Sell you an Arabic book before it is good. The first Arabic results were not worth your money. Those routes are being rebuilt. When they work, they will be here; until then they are not for sale.

Use your child’s name to sell you anything. We were given that name to make a book. It does not go into an ad.

Where we are

Tiny Lil Tales is run from Egypt, priced in Egyptian pounds, and written for families here first. A book starts at EGP 200. Payment is confirmed by hand, which is slower than a checkout button and lets a person see every order before it starts.

Questions go to hello@tinyliltales.com, and a person answers them.