Every so often, a parent asks us for a story with a famous dragon in it, or a well-known chocolate factory, or a much-loved cartoon pig. We understand completely. Children adore their favourite characters, and so do we. But every BellaBye story is our own, with characters of our own, and we’d like to explain why.
The story should belong to your child
BellaBye began with our daughter, Bella, asking for one more story. What she wanted wasn’t a story about someone famous. She wanted a story about her: her friends, her toys, the things she loved and the people who loved her.
That’s what we make. Your child is the star of every story, alongside the people, pets, toys and imaginary friends in their life. A famous character tends to take over. They arrive with their own adventures, their own catchphrases and their own way of doing things, and before long your child is a guest in someone else’s story. We’d rather the story stayed theirs.
Other people’s characters belong to them
The characters children love most were made by someone: a writer, an illustrator, a whole studio of people who worked hard to bring them to life. Those characters belong to the people who made them, and it isn’t our place to borrow them.
We feel the same about our own world. Bodgey the robot, Pip the dragon and the rest of our cast were made for BellaBye, and none of them is meant to look like anyone else’s. Respecting other people’s work is part of how we’d like to be treated too.
Bedtime is no place for selling
Brands and franchises are, quite reasonably, in the business of selling things: films, toys, lunchboxes, pyjamas. That’s fine in the toy shop, but we don’t want it at the bedside.
The last few minutes before sleep should be calm and quiet. They’re not the moment for a child to be reminded of the next thing they’d like to buy. So our stories leave out brands of every kind, from sweets and fizzy drinks to games and gadgets. A sweet shop in a BellaBye story is simply a sweet shop, full of jars and wonder, with no labels on the jars.
What happens if you ask
You’re welcome to ask for anything you like in tonight’s story. If your request names a famous character, a brand or a well-known place, we don’t refuse it. We make our own version instead, and we tell you what we changed, so there are no surprises when the story starts.
Most of the time, children don’t mind at all. What they love about their favourite characters is usually something underneath: the courage, the friendship, the jokes, the pluck of a small creature in a big world. Those things don’t belong to anyone, so they’re in our stories all the time. A brave little dragon, a clever robot or a kind giant can carry all of that, and your child gets to meet them for the very first time.
Room for both
None of this means famous characters don’t belong at bedtime. If your child’s favourite book on the shelf is full of them, read it, again and again, as many times as they ask. BellaBye sits beside the books you love, never instead of them.
In fact, the two often work well together. A child who loves a famous bear in a book might enjoy a story tonight about a bear of their own, one who lives in their garden, knows their dog by name and has never been in a book before. They get the thing they love, and something new besides.
We simply make something different: a story that has never been told before, made around one child, with a cast that’s ours and a hero who is entirely theirs. We think that’s worth keeping just as it is.
Sweet dreams,The BellaBye teamWritten byThe BellaBye teamWe’re a family making bedtime stories for every child, read in the voices they love.
