Our son's bookshelf was full of books that did not see him.

Why does Me the Star exist?

I'm a mixed-race dad. We couldn't find a book on the shelf that drew our son the way he actually looks. So we made one. Then I realized every parent has the same gap. Books are written for nobody in particular. Yours should star yours.

Alex Chua, founder note on methestar.com

Every personalized book we tried put our son's name into someone else's story and drew a character from a menu that did not have him on it. So we wrote our own. Me the Star is the result: the story is written from a real moment in your kid's week, and the illustrations are drawn from a photo of them, so the child on every page is unmistakably yours.

Me the Star was founded by Alex and Jordan Chua. It is a US company, and every book is printed in Pennsylvania.

How is a book made?

1. 1

   One photo

   We build a private likeness sheet from it, face, hair and skin tone, and reuse that sheet on every page of every book. Same face, same age, year after year.

2. 2

   One real moment

   You write two or three sentences about something that happened this week. The story is written around it, in the voice and length that fits your kid's age. About a minute for the story, another 30 seconds per illustration.

3. 3

   You approve every page

   Read it free, narrated aloud. Rewrite any line. Redraw any page. Only print what you actually want on the shelf. Every printed book also passes a real human reviewer and an automated likeness check before it goes to the press.

4. 4

   Printed in Pennsylvania

   An 8.5 by 8.5 inch hardcover, 32 pages, ribbon bookmark, archival paper, $39. Standard ground delivery is 5 to 7 business days in the contiguous US, with a 14-day happiness guarantee: reprint at no cost or a full refund, your choice.

What happens to your kid's photo?

The photo builds the likeness sheet and nothing else. It is never used to train AI, never sold, and never shared with advertisers. The AI we use runs under contracts that forbid training on your inputs. Photos are auto-deleted after your last order, and you can delete a kid's profile and everything attached to it at any time from your account.

The full policy, including every third-party processor we use and exactly how long each kind of data is kept, is on the privacy page. If any of it is unclear, write to us and we will answer in plain English.

What do we deliberately not do?

• We do not keep a catalogue of stories. There is nothing to browse; the book does not exist until you describe the moment.
• We do not sell licensed characters. Nobody writes a new story around a cartoon.
• We do not publish testimonials until they are real and signed off. The quote above is ours, and it says so.
• We do not generate photographs of children. The illustrations are paintings of your kid, and they are the product.

Who makes the books