Creating a Book for Children Using AI Tools (How I Did It)

Part 1: Writing the story with ChatGPT

I’ve had a passion for children’s books since I can remember. Books and stories for children have to boil down the essence of good storytelling, morality, character development, and visual art to the absolute core and present them in a way that is understandable even to toddlers. As a child, I still remember being magnetically attracted to these books; some still impact me today.

So as a (visual) storyteller, I always wanted to get my hands into this kind of creation. But sadly, my drawing skills are nowhere near where I would like them to be.

The book cover. Created by the author, using MidJourney.

A couple of years ago, I partnered with my former student and then coworker, the wonderful and talented Tamara Likon, with whom I planned to make a short animated cartoon. Unfortunately, we both ran out of time, so that project had to be abandoned.

But the story stuck with me, and now I decided to revisit the idea.

Honestly, even back then, I didn’t have the story plotted out with more than a few sentences. It wasn’t anything more than a pitch, basically going like this: A mother living in a jungle finds out her child is sick. To heal her, she has to go to the forest and find medicinal herbs. That’s it. Nothing special.