Clever Books
Clever Books is a creative startup that makes children's story personal. Kids themselves can be the main character in their high quality printed book. We have conducted an interview with the founders of this great idea.
Where did you get your inspirations in this startup about personalised books?
The inspiration for this startup is coming from my husband Thorsten. He is a born teacher as he invents educative and really nice tales on the go for our daughter. I was listening for him telling those stories about how is it important to eat vegetables or brush teeth, be nice with people and listen to parents and the idea about creating books with stories came to my mind. I wanted always to make these stories and books special and attractive to kids and therefore we made them personalized in the sense that kids can see their pictures in the books and also read stories about themselves! The stories are very helpful for parents in first place as they are helping kids through positive attitude to understand the importance of keeping room clean, helping parents or going to school and many other things that parents keep on struggling with and sometimes without any result. The inspirations are coming obviously from my daughter who is a live example of the story topics :) I have also noticed that personalised books motivate kids for reading which is great for them as well!
What is your own startup story?
After having the idea it’s important to implement and I can’t obviously have all the necessary skills for that. Here comes networking in play. I knew who I would need to start the ball rolling and I just needed to make those people interested in doing business with me. This way I discovered that Alexandra, our book designer and professional photographer, was happy to get involved. She is creating great book designs that help to dive into the story and feel comfortable with the book. We are also having people with pedagogical and linguistic education who are creating great stories and also illustrator who is making stories bright and live. The story was that I needed to make efforts to organizes those people and make the whole though small now mechanism work to bring digital books to a publishing company and then have the first order published. That was the fantastic feeling to see the books and have great quality goods you can deliver to customers now.
In your opinion, what does the owl symbolises?
The owl is sacred to the Greek goddess of learning, Athena and is even depicted on some Greco-Roman currency as symbol intelligence. Athena, the Greek Goddess of Wisdom had a companion Owl on her shoulder, which revealed unseen truths to her. Owl had the ability to light up Athena's blind side, enabling her to speak the whole truth, as opposed to only a half truth.
Why was it chosen as Clever Books' logo?
The symbol of owl is wisdom and therefore we have selected this bird as our company logo as we create awesome books for clever kids and smart parents.
Which are the top 5 main characters presented in your books that helps children in their development?
The main characters of the books are the kids for who we make those books. The kid is a positive character in each story. He or she is trying to understand things, makes mistakes however understands and realises, apologizes when feels guilty and always becomes smarter and learns from his mistakes if any. We have a lot of different stories that appear in different books sets, covering many topics to help parents (for example, importance of brushing teeth, helping parents, eating vegetables, keeping room clean and in order, being honest, sharing with friends, danger of eating too many sweets etc, etc.)
How does fairy tales help children to work through their anxieties?
Albert Einstein once said: “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” This is where we are coming from. Fairy tales in general help kids to understand the world and adapt. So why not to use the fairy tales where the kids are the main characters? This helps them to get more involved in the story, realise their own behaviour in some way and also see the positive outcome of doing things differently like being less stubborn or helping mom to keep toys in order. This is the idea and as we get positive feedback we are extremely happy to keep on doing this good thing!
Which are the most engaging book titles published by Clever Books?
The feedback we receive basically says that the stories on their own are quite engaging as kid is the main character and he is reading about himself and yes, that is quite interesting that kids, that have reading skills, get more motivated to read those stories on their own. Thus books we create have become also a motivation for kids to read. We obviously haven’t thought about this effect in advance however quite happy with the outcome now.
What books are currently available?
Currently we have Blue book set, Yellow book set (with photo personalizations and popular nursery rhymes) available and getting ready with other sets. We offer as well 100% customisable book set where parents choose the topics of the stories they what to be in the book.
Visit our website to discover book sets we offer: http://www.cleverbooks.eu/
Join us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/CleverBooksPage
And also have support owl products here in our partnering shop.
