Storywizard is a British service where a child invents their own story and receives it as a real printed book, with their name on the cover. It was built because one nine-year-old wanted to write books and had no way to hold one. Information for journalists, editors and producers is below.
Story angles
Most personalised book companies stop at printing a child's name. Storywizard offers the finished book in a dyslexia-friendly format, and the main book-creation journey has been self-assessed against WCAG 2.2 AA. The work was shaped by teachers and by a parent of children with SEN.
A free tool that helps a parent match a child to a book by age and reading level, and gives the reading age, content type, any content warnings and a synopsis for each title. Content warnings for children's books are hard to find anywhere in a searchable form.
The premise is simple: a child will read a book they wrote themselves. Storywizard is used as a reading-motivation tool rather than a keepsake — the finished book is the reward for the writing, not the point of it.
Curriculum-linked lesson plans, character profile sheets and story planners, free to download and free to use. Teachers can run a whole class through the same process so every pupil ends up a published author.
A child's own story, read aloud in British narration and delivered as audio. It doubles as an accessibility route for children who take in a story better by listening than by reading.
Storywizard began with a straightforward problem. Founder Martin Hawthorne's daughter, Harper, wanted to write books — and there was no way for a child to write a proper book and end up holding the finished thing. So he built one. Harper was its first author, has since given radio interviews about children writing their own stories, and the idea has drawn interest from BBC Newsround. Both are available for interview.
The basics
Interviews, review copies, images and comment — usually answered the same day.