What a birthday book is really for
At the party it is a present. Ten years later it is a record: what they were obsessed with, who their best friend was, the word they always said wrong. The details that feel too small to write down are the ones nobody remembers otherwise.
What to put in it
The thing they love this year, however specific — not "animals" but the one kind of digger they point at. The people who matter to them now. Something they have just learned to do, and are proud of.
A story they can be brave or clever in. Children like being the one who solves it, and a birthday is the day they are allowed to be the hero without anyone minding.
First birthdays
A first birthday book is really for the adults, and for the child later. Penwynn books are hardcovers with paper pages, not board books, so for a one-year-old it is a book a grown-up holds and reads aloud — and puts on a high shelf in between.
Where a book comes in
You describe the birthday child and the people in their life, choose the reading age, and the story and every illustration are made for them. You read the whole book and see every page before you decide to have it printed.
