Questions
The things people ask, answered the way we would answer them in person.
Is it free?
Some of it, always. A book on the front page opens with no account and nothing to fill in, and a shelf of books opens once a grown-up signs in. Everything else needs a subscription, which pays for making the books.
Do I need an account?
Not to start. Beyond the free book a grown-up signs in with Google, and it is their email we hold — never a profile for your child, and never their name.
How long is a story?
About five minutes, usually ten pages. Every book on the shelf says how long it is before you open it, and that number is measured from the recording rather than guessed from the words.
Are the stories read aloud?
Yes, every one, and the reading is recorded before the book is published. Characters have their own voices where a story has more than one person in it. There is a button to hear a page again, which is the one small children press most.
What ages is it for?
Three to ten. Each book says who it is for, and you can narrow the shelf to one age.
What languages can we read in?
English, Malayalam and Hindi. A book is written in its language rather than translated into it, so the names, the food and the weather belong where the story is set. We add a language when we have somebody who reads it well enough to check every book in it.
Are the Hindi and Malayalam stories translations?
No. They are written in their own language. A translated story keeps somebody else's week and swaps the words; a story written in Malayalam has the rain, the food and the grandmother a child in that house already knows.
My child is growing up abroad. Will this help them keep the language?
That is who we had in mind. School is in English, the television is in English, and the books are in English, until the home language becomes the one thing only a grandparent uses. We are not teaching a language — a story that is really a lesson stops being a story. We are keeping it in the part of childhood where stories live.
How are the books made?
Each one starts as a brief somebody writes — a subject, an age, sometimes a reason. The words are written to that brief, the pictures are drawn in one house style from character descriptions fixed before the first page, and the reading is recorded voice by voice. Then a person reads the whole thing and decides whether it goes on the shelf.
Are there adverts?
None, and there never will be. Nothing here is trying to sell your child anything.
What do you know about my child?
Nothing. There is no name, no age and no profile for them, and no box for a child to type into. Where they got to in a book is kept by your own browser and by nothing else — which is also why it is not there if you clear your browser or open the site on another device.
Can we read on a phone or a tablet?
Yes, and nothing needs installing. The book turns like a book, and on a wide screen it opens as two pages the way a real one does.
Can we read in the dark?
There is a lamp in every book. Turn it down and the page goes to warm paper by candlelight rather than white on black, which is easier at the end of the day. There is also a size control and a switch to plainer letters with more space between them.
How do I cancel?
In one click, from the same page you subscribed on, and it keeps working until the end of what you have paid for. The free shelf stays free either way.