Show HN: I made an app to create personalized stories for children in 5 minutes

[xcanchal]

Create tailored stories for children in three simple steps and in less than 5 minutes. Describe main character and optional secondary characters. Choose or type a story theme and pick your favorite illustration style. Generate the story texts, the cover and pages illustrations and get a downloadable PDF right away!

Ideal for parents or to make an special gift!

[sambeau]

This is ghastly.

Children’s books are some of the most wonderful little pieces of art; art that nurtures, entertains, educates and instills both moral compasses and working funny bones. All of our lives have been enriched by them. Some children’s stories continue to enrich us for all of our lives.

This doesn’t just steal work from those artists working today, but it steals from every artist who came before. It adds nothing to humanity; it robs so much.

It also destroys nature to do it. It robs from the world and worsens humanity.

Why do it? Money? Infamy? Internet points?

Please delete the project and do something worthwhile.

[xcanchal]

I built this project originally for my 3YO daughter and I've generated and read so many stories to her while building it. Those moments are priceless and made it worthwile alone.

[tastysandwich]

That is very negative and assumes the worst about OP.

He created something and shared it with the world. It's not to your taste and that's fine. But don't knock someone down for having a red hot go at something.

[tropdrop]

I am not an expert on children's stories, but I wondered about the vocabulary – "magnificent," or "newfound confidence." I'm imagining one might want to tailor the difficulty of the vocab based on the age of the child.

[xcanchal]

Thanks for your feedback! I myself read these to my 3YO daughter and it's true that sometimes I have to adapt the text on the fly. Always room for improvement!

[gambiting]

I dislike every single thing about this. Services like Spotify and others are now absolutely flooded with AI generated kids stories, it's so hard to find anything with even an ounce of soul among all the slop.

As a parent, I really see that as a cancer that keeps spreading among children media. I appreciate you probably thought this is a good idea for a business or a project in general but for the sake of our children and us all - please stop.

[frankhorrigan]

Absolutely agree. This might be a fun personal project. But things like this only hasten the decline towards a dead internet where human-created things with heart and intent are impossible to locate among the dregs of paper-thin AI drivel which only approximates human invention.

Just because we can does not mean we should.

[xcanchal]

I'm a parent myself and my daughter (3YO) won't stop asking me new stories everyday.

I kind of get your point but the moments I've been sharing with her thanks to this project are priceless.

[frumper]

Media for kids has been filled with soulless junk long before AI stepped in. You've always needed to find trustworthy sources to filter through it.

[fennecbutt]

I somewhat agree, but it's pointless.

People still go to McDonald's.

[bookbyter]

good idea! But I wonder if it is a constant and true demand for parents . I think it's a little weird to use a ai-made book, I 'd rather draw with my kid together to create a book or pictures. Only from my view, good try btw.

[xcanchal]

Thanks! From my own personal experience, my 3YO daughter loves them and reading those to her as bedtime stories has been very much common lately!

I purchased other custom books created in more "traditional" ways, although I assume there has to be some degree of automation too, and the experience feels similar, she even resembles way more in these than in the traditional ones.

[flippinbits]

Interesting, I like the language selection. Checkout doesn’t work though, I wanted ti purchase one and nothing happens (500 response).

[xcanchal]

Ouch many thanks for reporting. Have you tried it more than once? It seems to be working for me

[kemotep]

So does this service have print on demand or is it just a pdf? What is the value add over just using an llm and image generator yourself?

[xcanchal]

On-demand printing is on the roadmap. Yes you can do it yourself if you want, same as with any other existing tool, but there has been time and effort invested to get the best results with the minimal effort, and it can just keep improving!

[tanvach]

I'm sure you will get very polarized opinion here. I wish good luck to your project.

Getting to the goal faster can be great. I've started illustrating books for my son and I can see the appeal for this tool, especially as a non-artist.

But to me the journey to a arrive at a book (sketching, going to the library, buying books together) are the things that ultimately create memories and meaning. AI should allow you to have more time for these activities rather than removing them entirely.

[xcanchal]

Thanks for your comment and wishes. Your son is lucky to have you and those unique stories!

I prefer to not think on absolutes and I believe that there are many different ways to create emotional/valuable stuff though! And if AI (or any other tool) helps me creating those I'll welcome them.

[pianetanaif]

No thanks!