Inspiring creativity & a love for reading with Night Zookeeper

AD - This is a collaboration with Night Zookeeper: Escape from Conform Prison #mynzkhero  

When it comes to gifting over the festive period, I always aim for the majority of our presents to have a purpose, to be useful or educational or inspiring, especially when it comes to children's presents. Recently we were invited to review the process of creating and ordering a personalised book from Night Zookeeper and my boys couldn't be more excited to see one of their creations in a printed book and this without a doubt with encouraging even the most reluctant of readers to start turning pages.

Firstly what is the Night Zookeeper series?  Well, it's a set of 5 beautifully written and illustrated books by Joshua Davidson, aimed at 7-12yrs olds with the purpose of inspiring your child to fall in love with reading by offering a more interactive story setting that encourages children to use their imaginations with storylines that prompt action and highlights the importance of critical thinking, creative arts and freedom of expression. 

What makes the personalised book so unique? The personalised book - Escape from Conform Prison allows children to design the hero! They can do this either online or with pen and pencils which they upload and then their unique imaginative character will be brought to life on the pages. 

This book is also unlike any others my boys have ever read as they get to pick the path their hero takes with choices being made within the story that affects the hero's journey. This also means you can re-read the book and try different routes. It's so cleverly crafted that ever since my boy's books arrive they have been making time to read a few pages (as reluctant readers this is very exciting). 

I don't want to give away too many details about the actual story (and we have yet to finish the whole book ourselves) except to say that it's a wonderful tale about friendship, working together, freedom and the importance of thinking out of the box. 

The whole process was really easy, my boys love to draw and they love animals so it was an easy pick for them to be inspired by our own pets for their hero's. Also, I personally can't say enough about the pride and excitement my boys felt when they saw their creation in print! 

The quality of this book and the vivid colours used in the illustrations along with being able to personalise it in your own unique way makes this a fantastic gift for children. It costs £18.99 and ships within 3-5 days so the last orders for Christmas are around the 17th. Also, don't worry if you don't have time for your child to upload a design or you want to give this to a friend - you can purchase a book gift voucher which they can use when they are ready and comes with a printable activity sheet and instructions on how to create their hero character. 

Overall my boys loved creating their book, the whole process was fun and the beautiful illustrated 220-page book is a lovely addition to our mini home library and is something we will keep for a very long time.