Love2read are a company specialising in personalised photobooks, with an emphasis on children’s reading.
We were given the opportunity to make our own and I was really pleased with how it came out. It offers a really wide range of personalisation and you have a lot of flexibility with the template, so you can make it however you would like it to be! There are not a lot of constraints at all.
The people at love2read kindly made me a unique template so that the book could be called “Our Dada” – rather than “My Dad” as that way all my children can share it and it’s more relevant to them. I have seen other variants on the website too so I am sure if you ask them for any version of what you would prefer, they would accommodate you!
Here’s my 3 and 4 year old sharing the book at bedtime!
As you can see the front cover is made up of 4 of the pictures from inside. This will be whichever pictures you choose for the first 4 pages.
You get to chose 10 pictures for the book, and also chose exactly what is written on each page. Each one starts with Our Dada.. (or whatever you have chosen, eg My Dad) then you can just fill it in!
Ours has:
Our Dada is great
Our Dada makes us laugh
Our Dada takes us on days out
Our Dada is strong
Our Dada goes to work every day
Our Dada goes on rides with us
Our Dada takes us to the park
Our Dada drives us in his car
Our Dada loves our Mum
Our Dada loves us.
Each one with a suitable matching picture.
As you can imagine, their Dad was quite pleased with it when he came home to see a book starting off with how great he is! It’s nice to have a such a lovely positive book for them to share and appreciate their dad. For a slightly older child to actually design and pick all the photos and words themselves would be a really touching gift for any Dad as its a way to express all their favourite things about him and let him know he is really appreciated.
Another thing I found really good about the book is that with all the sentences being so short and simple, and with the key words being repeated, it is very suitable for young children learning to read. My 4 year old is learning at the moment, and he was able to read the whole book. Seeing the family pictures inside the book kept him interested and he was able to read it without complaining that he’s getting tired of reading, which he sometimes does with other reading books. At the end the 2 main key words are repeated several times on the back page, so that children at the very start of learning to read could just pick those out and learn to recognise the couple of words.
My 3 year old gets really excited by seeing any pictures of Dada when he is out at work, so he was very interested in this and enthusiastic about having a look at all the pages. I also put in pictures of the boys with Dada, and me with Dada, and of course Dada’s car (couldn’t miss that – they all love the car!) so they all had fun spotting everyone and everything in all of the pictures.
The book is quite a small compact size so you could easily take it out with you if you need something to keep the children entertained while out and about, and each page is made from strong thick good quality paper so not likely to rip. The cover has a glossy sheen to it.
There are other varieties on the love2read website too. It would be quite nice to make a set of all different ones, and I will definitely bare it in mind for the future. It is very easy to customise and order the book on the website and it came pretty quickly so I would really recommend the company.
If you want to order for Father’s Day – their last date for orders is 10th June so don’t put it off too long!
If you like the sound of these books and would like the chance to win your own, click here for our competition post where you can enter via the rafflecopter widget!
Anna Marikar, mum of four and seasoned blogger, has spent over a decade sharing her parenting journey and passion for kid-friendly crafts and free printables.
Her easy-to-follow craft ideas and practical parenting advice have transformed In The Playroom into a cherished resource for parents.
Your boys are very cute reading together there 🙂