Our story

It usually starts somewhere ordinary, like the back seat of the car on a long drive, or in the reading corner before lights out. The stories also often come on a walk, where one of my children will simply start telling one, and I have learned to do the only thing that matters, which is listen.

My daughter told me an entire book in one sitting at age seven. She had hundreds of ideas tumbling out faster than I could even catch them. My son was five when he explained to me, in complete seriousness, what a dinosaur eats for dinner. I could not have made it up.

Some stories come from their grandparents, some from their aunties, and some from friends who visited us for a weekend. Every single one is a real story told by someone we love.

I write the stories down in English as rhyming verses. My husband Bengt then does something special that other picture books rarely do. Instead of translating my words, he takes the same story and writes his own German poem from scratch, so that both languages rhyme on their own. It really keeps the fun. A child can grow up with either version, or both side by side on the same page. Our priority is that whether you are reading one language or two, the fun is still there and the story can be enjoyed.

I write from Zurich, at a desk facing the river, usually after the children are asleep and the house has gone quiet. The stories belong to them. I just make sure they are never lost.

We hope these books find their way into your family's story time. They are full of an imagination no adult could invent, and they are fun, enjoyable, and unique stories in one language or two.