A personalised book puts a child’s own name, face, family or day into the story. Parents ask whether that makes any real difference to how a child reads, or whether it is a nice idea with a good sales pitch. The honest answer has three parts: a little relevant research, a lot that nobody has tested, and a short list of things you can check for yourself.
What the research points to
Two areas of research are worth knowing. The first is the self-reference effect: in a classic 1977 set of experiments, people remembered words better when they judged them against themselves than when they judged them in other ways. The second is shared reading: studies of adults and children reading picture books together link conversation about the story with language gains.
There is also a small body of work on personalised books themselves. A 2014 study by Kucirkova, Messer and Sheehy compared personalised and non-personalised books read with preschool children and reported more word learning with the personalised versions. It was a small study, in specific conditions, and it did not test a book made from a photo. The science page lists these sources and what each one can and cannot tell us.
What nobody has shown
- That a photo-based book beats a name-based book for comprehension, confidence or reading habits.
- That a personalised book improves reading ability over months or years.
- That MakeMyStory books do any of this. We have not run a study, so we do not claim an outcome.
What we can say is narrower: a book that shows a child as the hero gives a parent and child something specific to talk about, and some children ask for it again. That is a reason to try one, not proof it works.
What a photo-based book looks like
Here is one, so you can judge for yourself. Rachel was three. The photo on the left is the one her book was made from, and the pages are from Clap, Clap, Pause, a birthday story. Look at whether the girl on the cover and the girl on the pages are recognisably the same child, and whether the writing sounds like something you would enjoy reading aloud.
"Clap, clap... pause!" That's Rachel's clap, and nobody else can clap like that. Her birthday! She waits, still as a mouse. Will anything answer, in all of the house?
Page 1
Rachel giggled all down the hall, and "jingle-jangle!" came the spoons' call. "Is that the birthday girl?" Mum said. "It's the birthday BAND!" Out popped her head.
Page 4
Five checks for any personalised book
- Can you see a real example? Look at several pages, not only the cover. Ours are on the examples page.
- Is the child the same on every page? If likeness matters to you, check the pages side by side. We explain how we work to keep it, and where it can slip, on the page about making a book from your child’s photo.
- Does the story fit the moment? A birthday, a new baby or a first day at school each need a different story. See the birthday book idea for how we approach one.
- What do you see before you pay? With MakeMyStory you see where the story is heading and meet your child in your chosen art style, and you can ask for up to three changes. The finished pages are made once you confirm.
- What happens to the photo? Read the privacy terms before you upload. Ours are in the privacy policy.
The best test is simple: does your child want it read again? If the research is thin, that part is easy to check at home.
