The gift that was almost right
When you have five kids, you get good at finding gifts that feel special. Personalized storybooks seemed like a perfect idea — a book with your child's name in it, how magical is that?
Except when the books arrived, the magic wore off fast. Their name was on the cover. Maybe dropped into a sentence or two. But the story? Generic. The hero? A placeholder. It wasn't their adventure — it was just a template with a name swap.
My kids noticed. And honestly, so did I.
So I started making them myself
I'm a dad who likes to solve problems. So I started writing the books myself — stories built around my kids' real personalities, their favorite things, their quirks, their dreams. Stories where they weren't just mentioned but were genuinely the hero at the center of the whole adventure.
The difference was immediate. These weren't books my kids tolerated at bedtime — these were books they asked for. Books they carried around and showed to friends. Books that made them feel seen.
Then my grandkids came along, and the tradition continued.
Other families started asking
Word gets around. Friends and family started asking if I could make books for their kids too. Then friends of friends. What started as something personal and handmade quietly grew into something bigger.
Every book I made for someone else's child had the same effect — that moment when a kid opens a book and realizes it's about them, really truly them, is something you never get tired of seeing. Parents would send me videos. Grandparents would cry. Kids would make their parents read it five nights in a row.
That reaction never got old.
My Own Hero Books was born
My Own Hero Books exists because every child deserves a story that truly belongs to them — not a template, not a name swap, but a real adventure written around who they actually are, illustrated in a style that suits them, and calibrated to exactly where they are as a reader.
It's still a personal, hands-on project. Every book is made with the same care I put into the ones I made for my own kids and grandkids. And every time a family sends us a photo of their little one clutching their book at bedtime, it reminds us exactly why we do this.