AI children's books grandparents buy as customized gifts are becoming a new family technology fight, according to WIRED: parents say relatives are putting kids’ names, likenesses and family stories into automated book-making services, often over objections.
The products are not fringe experiments. WIRED identified services including Imagitime, StoryWonderBook and Childbook.ai that market personalized storybooks for children. The pitch is obvious enough: upload or enter details, receive a book that appears to feature the child. The catch, parents told WIRED, is that personalization does not make a bad story good, and it can turn a bedtime routine into a small privacy incident with illustrations.
One Reddit user wrote in an anti-AI forum that their mother planned to make an AI-generated birthday book about the user’s daughter despite being told not to use the child’s photos or identifying information. The user said the book drew on real experiences, used family first names and modeled characters on the child’s traits.
WIRED also spoke with a 41-year-old father in the Midwest, who asked not to be named to avoid upsetting the gift givers. He said both of his children, ages 7 and 3, had received personalized AI books from friends or family. His assessment was blunt: after one reading, the kids preferred Alice Schertle’s Little Blue Truck books. The AI versions were too long and did not hold their attention, he said.
A 40-year-old father in Los Angeles, also unnamed by WIRED because of family sensitivity, said his mother-in-law had given his 1-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son four AI-made books. Two Mother’s Day titles were the same except for which child appeared in them, he said. He described putting children’s likenesses into such systems as morally wrong.
Why are parents worried about AI children's books?
Parents’ concerns fall into two buckets: quality and data. Daozhi Xu, a fellow in Macquarie University’s School of Humanities who has studied the AI children’s book boom, told WIRED that children do not embrace a book just because it includes their name or image. She said strong children’s books depend on characters, plots and imagined worlds, while AI-generated versions often miss humor, memorable figures and dramatic tension.
Xu also said parents have a valid reason to worry about how platforms handle children’s photos, including whether images are stored, shared with third parties or used to train AI systems. That is the machinery behind the cute gift: a child’s identity becomes input data for a vendor’s platform.
Imagitime told WIRED it uses security measures to protect user data, does not share data with unauthorized third parties and does not use it for promotion or AI training. The company also said its books are not just AI-generated and are partly edited by a creative team of writers and illustrators. StoryWonderBook and Childbook.ai did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment.
The business is cheaper than traditional publishing
The economics are part of the story. WIRED reported that Imagitime sells a hardcover for $54.99. StoryWonderBook offers a $14.99 monthly plan for up to 20 stories, with audio narration and an online gallery. Childbook.ai’s $24 monthly premium plan includes credits for 50 books a month and one printed book during that period.
Those prices make AI-assisted story production look efficient next to the slow work of writing, editing and illustrating a children’s book by hand. WIRED noted that parents have also complained online about AI-made children’s books on Amazon that were not clearly labeled, AI-generated puzzles with errors and the spread of AI imagery in material aimed at kids.
The timing is awkward. A January 2025 National Assessment of Educational Progress report said about 40 percent of US fourth-graders read below the “basic” level. A HarperCollins and Nielsen survey last year found parents were reading aloud to children at a record low rate, with less than half of parents of children up to 13 saying they found it fun.
Brandon Kirkman, a Chicago artist and comedian, told WIRED his parents gave his 4-year-old daughter an AI-generated book about activities they do with her and her 2-year-old sister. He said the gift was well intended, but the children’s interest did not compare with the books they already ask their parents to read.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
