Night ZooKeeper Personalised book review with a difference!

All my life I’ve had a love for reading, ever since I was a little girl.  I loved it without really knowing the importance of reading, but now that I am a parent to three children, I understand that reading can be both enjoyable and educational.  It’s this reason why I encourage the children as much as possible to read, every day if they can.  Reading is a perfect way to loose yourself if your feeling overwhelmed or stressed and this definitely applies to children too.

My seven year old Missy’s reading has developed greatly over the last few months and with many months last year missed at school, it’s lovely to see her now really grasp the joy of reading.  She’s really struggled the last 12 months and there were many times were she lost interest, purely because she wasn’t invested and lost the love of reading because she found it so difficult.  But more recently she’s come on leaps and bounds!  So it was to my absolute delight when the team behind the Night Zookeeper books asked us to review one of their personalised books – and this personalisation is a little bit different.  Let’s read on to find out!

The Unique Experience with Night Zookeeper: Escape from Conform Prison

I love anything personalised, turning a standard gift into something that really stands out.  There are many children’s books on the market at the moment that are personalised, mostly with your child’s name and sometimes including a cartoon drawing of your child.  However, Night Zookeeper have decided to go one step further and make this a really unique experience for your child.

Night Zookeeper: Escape from Conform Prison is the first book in the world (yes I know!) where children can design and draw their own hero to be included in the book!  Your child simply chooses a name for their animal hero, select a chosen skill (list of skills provided) and then finally they get to draw their very own  personalised animal hero to be added to the story of Night Zookeeper: Escape from Conform Prison!  Sounds pretty cool – and it certainly is!

The process is really simple and easy to do.

– Simply upload your child’s drawing on to their website, either by your child’s drawing being drawn directly onto the site or uploading from your phone or computer,  It’s recommended that your child draws in either paint or felt tips for a more vivid image.

– You child can then pick a name for their animal hero

– Followed by a selected skill (write, dance, sing, act, draw or game)  This part is really important as it will determine how the story pans out!

– Finally your child will need to input their name

– The last point offers the option to input some dedication text

Our review of Night Zookeeper: Escape from Conform Prison

Our personalised book arrived within a couple of days.  For the price (which is £18.99 for softback and £23.99) I did expect the book to big a tag larger.  I think its hard to determine what size a book is going to be when shopping online.  In my head I had that it was going be around the A4 mark however it was more like a larger A5.  It wasn’t a problem, it was perhaps my distorted size expectations!

We got sent out the softback and despite it not being of hardcover, the quality is fantastic and already, we could tell from the cover that the story inside was going to be attention grabbing, with bright coloured illustrations throughout.

Immediately we spotted Missy’s drawing and the name of her animal hero printed in large letters on the front.

What I was also very impressed by was how thick the book was!  There is over 200 pages of magical adventure waiting to be explored inside the book and as I skimmed through, it was to my delight that this book is down to the child’s decision to what happens, meaning there is a new adventure every time.

I have been searching high and low for a book like this over the years, having been given a similar book for Christmas as a child.  I’ve never been able to find one that’s been suitable for my younger children and one that’s full of illustrations, exciting text and fun adventure – now I have!

The story and the way it is written with different styled text and layout definitely grabs Missy’s attention, and the fact that she can change the direction of how the story is going has been a real hit.

This ‘create your adventure’ book has been a lovely addition and we’ve loved reading this story together.  It’s also had my 4 year old interested too!  I think another one of these books will no doubt be on a Christmas list next year!

“My name is Will Rivers, the Night Zookeeper,” said Will quietly but firmly. “I have a name, not a number.”

Night Zookeeper Will and his friends Riya and Sam the Spying Giraffe have been captured by Voids and taken to Conform Prison in Nulth. Behind the prison’s grey walls, Stifle, the gorilla guard, is doing the Lord of Nulth’s bidding and turning animals into robots.

Thankfully, a mysterious new animal has appeared in the Night Zoo who has the power to save them.

Can you make the right choices to guide the Night Zookeeper and the magical animals of the Night Zoo to freedom?’

Final thoughts

Overall, I am super impressed with this fantastic engaging personalised book for Missy.  This is a great book for her age (she is 7 and this book is recommended for children aged 7+)  It’s exciting, a story that is 100% different to the other books she has on her shelf and therefore stands out, making a great purchase or gift for a child.  We really love how it allows the reader to feel fully immersed into the story – anything to encourage more reading I say!  A big thumbs up from us!  Last orders for the book are on 17th December 2021!

Thanks for reading xxx