Why Both Kids and Venture Capitalists Love This Children’s Book
Technology and children’s books aren’t usually two things that go hand in hand, but one London-based company has brought them together in a very harmonious — and profitable — relationship. The Little Boy/Girl Who Lost His/Her Name is not only a customizable kids’ book, but a coding feat that is backed by the likes of Google Ventures.
The concept is simple: It tells a story about a child searching for his or her missing name. But this story has a twist. It can be adapted and changed to feature your child’s name. For each missing letter, there’s a new character introduced (a lion for the letter “L” and an aardvark for the letter “A,” etc.), so the end result is completely different for each child’s name. And the best part is, the story comes together instantly on the website for you to preview. Test it out here. We seriously couldn’t stop putting in our names to see what tales would be told.
Got a child with a unisex name like the Lively-Reynolds clan? No problem. You can specify so that the main character, little James or little Ryan, can be a girl, or little Ashley can be a boy. So far, they’ve sold almost 600,000 copies for over 50,000 names, requiring tens of thousands of lines of coding for each book (it’s all on an online software platform). And since this project is backed by Google Ventures, you know they mean serious techy business. So hurry and get your loved one’s wee ones this extraordinary reading experience.
What characters did you get when you put your name in? Tell us in the comments!
(h/t Fast Company)
