Our philosophy

At Picture Me Books we believe reading should be fun, especially when you're learning to read.

Our idea - and our homework

We were confident children would love our idea of photo-personalised stories but we wanted to make sure we weren't forgetting anything, so we asked kids what they wanted.

They told us: wild animals, superheroes, space adventures, princesses, pirates, magic, the colours of the rainbow and stacks of exciting pictures of themselves.

All Picture Me Books stories have been created with these many requests in mind. And before the finished stories were made available to the reading public, the books were thoroughly tested on kids.

They told us the books were "awesome" and "like wow". And said they were "thrilled", "excited", "happy" and "amazed".

And, we think you will be too.

Our little secret

There were a couple of things we didn't tell the kids. Picture Me Books stories:

• build self-esteem, the child is always the hero;
• are designed to be read again and again;
• can be enjoyed on different levels
• children can have the story read to them while they follow the pictures, children can "tell" their own story using the pictures, or, children can use the words and pictures to read the story themselves;
• are built to withstand lots of loving.

Our history

Children's author, journalist and mother of four, Rebecca Green wanted to share her passion for books with her children, so made a photo-personalised adventure story for each of them, for their birthday.

The first story, Too Many Matildas was inspired by a trip to the zoo. In the story, all the animals are called Matilda and the poor zoo keeper can't remember which animal eats what. Luckily, Matilda is there to help him.

Matilda loved her story, as did her friends, who asked if they could be storybook heroes, too. The story was adapted and soon there were Too Many Imogens, Bills, Sams, Sarahs and Emmas. Word spread. More requests followed and Picture Me Books was in business.

Our team

Picture Me Books now employs four illustrators, two authors and a team of support personnel who help create our fun and exciting personalised books, which are still as unique as the children they are made for.

 

Ali completed an Advanced Diploma of Screen Production while working as a camera assistant for very little money; this was ok because film sets often have nice catering.

Ali’s first picture book was Almost Super, and Ali says illustrating that was a lot more fun than illustrating storyboards for video clips, which are usually black and white and people often spill coffee on.
 
Ali works as a freelance director, art director and graphic designer and is a partner in Dork Film, a Melbourne-based music-video production company.

Ali’s second book is Koala Rescue: (child’s name) and dad save the day, which includes photos of the dad as well as the child.  

 

Author, journalist and keen reader, Rebecca believes reading should be fun. If it’s fun, says Rebecca, then children will want to do it. 

Rebecca has a Bachelor of Arts majoring in literature and journalism. She has written ten children’s books, edited three adult books and co-written three shows for the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Rebecca works for the Herald Sun; and was editor of their children’s page for three years.

 

Singing, dancing, guitar-strumming illustrator Richard Lewis drew his first ever ticklish giraffe for Too Many (child’s name). Richard also illustrated Captain (child’s name) Rocket Jobs: A Counting Flying Adventure and some of our Christmas cards.

Richard sings and plays guitar with his own band, designs CDs, posters and cards, plus he has a grown-up’s job at a magazine

 

 

Megan has a Bachelor of Arts in Textile design and spent many years working in the fashion industry. She always felt that illustrating children's books would be far more fun and was delighted when the opportunity finally came along.  
 
Megan thoroughly enjoyed illustrating her first book Goodnight Princess (child's name) getting inspiration from her two daughters who love everything sparkly and pink.

 

In primary school Brett loved to trace. “Cheats never prosper,” his teacher said.

In high school Brett dreamed of being an artist. “There’s no career in the arts, unless you run a gallery,” his teacher said.
Luckily Brett ignored his teachers.

Brett designs marketing material for film and tutors other designers, plus he illustrated Baby (child’s name) Special Delivery. He’s also a scriptwriter and director, which he has been warned there is no career in…