How to Make an All About Me Book Your Child Will Love

An all about me book is a small book where your child is the subject: their name, their people, their favorite things and their big dreams, one page at a time. It is one of the easiest first books to make, and one of the most fun to reread a year later.

What is an all about me book?

It is a simple nonfiction picture book about one child. There is no plot to work out. Each page answers one question, like "Who is in my family?" or "What do I want to be?", with a sentence and a picture.

Families make them as keepsakes, and teachers often ask for them at the start of a school year so the class can get to know each other. Because every page is a fact your child already knows, even a two-year-old can help.

What to put on each page, by age

Use these as a menu, not a checklist. Pick the pages your child gets excited about and skip the rest.

Toddlers (ages 1 to 3)

Keep pages short and photo-heavy. You do the writing; they point, name and turn pages.

• This is me. My name is ___.
• I am ___ years old.
• This is my family.
• This is where I sleep.
• My favorite toy is ___.
• I like to eat ___.
• My favorite animal says ___.
• I love it when ___ gives me a hug.

Preschool and kindergarten (ages 3 to 5)

Now they can answer in their own words. Write down exactly what they say, funny grammar and all.

• My name is ___ and I am ___.
• The people in my family are ___.
• My best friend is ___ because ___.
• My favorite color is ___.
• My favorite food is ___. I do not like ___.
• I am really good at ___.
• Something that makes me laugh is ___.
• When I feel sad, ___ helps.
• When I grow up, I want to be ___.

Early elementary (ages 6 to 8)

Older kids can write some or all of the sentences themselves and design their own pages.

• All about my name: who picked it and what it means.
• My family, and one fact about each person.
• Where I live and my favorite place nearby.
• My favorite book, game and show.
• Three things I am proud of.
• Something I am still learning.
• If I had one superpower, it would be ___.
• My big dream, and the first step toward it.
• A message to me, one year from now.

If your child wants a story instead of a list, try one of our children's book ideas next, with them as the hero.

How to make an all about me book (step by step)

You can make one in an afternoon on makeabook.fun. It is free, works on a phone, tablet or computer, and needs no sign-up.

1. Open the "All about me" starter. Go to the All about me starter. It pre-fills one page each for their name, family, favorite things and big dreams, with fill-in-the-blank prompts.
2. Pick a size. Square (8.5 × 8.5 in) suits a photo book. Tall, Wide and Big are also available.
3. Fill in the blanks with your child. Read each prompt aloud and type their answer. If a prompt does not fit your child, rewrite it in their words.
4. Add photos. Upload pictures from your phone or computer. Drag to reposition and zoom so faces sit where you want them.
5. Add their own drawings. Photograph a self-portrait or a family drawing, or let them draw right on the built-in drawing pad with a finger, mouse or stylus. They can even draw over a photo. Tall pictures like drawings are shown whole automatically.
6. Choose layouts, colors and a font. Try "big picture with words on it" for the name page and "picture with words below" for the rest. Andika, a font designed for children learning to read, is a good pick if your child will read it themselves.
7. Finish the cover. Add a title like "All About Maya", and list your child as the author. The title page and dedication page fill themselves in.
8. Read it, then print. Flip through it in the reader together, then download the free print-at-home PDF.

Our article on how to turn kids' drawings into a book has more tips on photographing art so it looks good on the page.

Photos or drawings: which works better?

Both, ideally. Photos are best for the facts: their face, their family, their room, their dog. Drawings are best for the feelings and dreams, because a picture of "me as an astronaut" is much better in their own crayon than anything you could find.

A nice pattern is a photo on the left-hand page and their drawing on the right. For toddlers, photos carry the whole book. For older kids, let them decide which pages get drawings.

Using an all about me book at school

Teachers often use all about me books in the first weeks of preschool, kindergarten and early grades. Kids share them at circle time, and the books help a new class learn names and find things in common.

A few tips if you are making one for school:

• Follow the teacher's list first. If they sent prompts home, use those as your pages and add extras at the end.
• Think about what you share. A book going to school may be passed around, so you might leave off details like your street address.
• Print a sturdy copy. Card stock or heavier paper for the cover holds up to many little hands. See how to print a picture book at home.
• Keep a copy at home. The book stays saved in your browser, so you can print another one later.

Teachers making books with a class can use makeabook.fun on classroom devices too. Each book saves in the browser on the device where it was made and nothing is uploaded, so student photos stay on that device. A Backup file moves a book to another device if needed.

Printing and keeping it

The free PDF prints each page in full color, centered on US Letter or A4 paper with small corner trim marks. If you would like it to feel more like a real book, the Keepsake edition ($2.99 once per book) gives you print-shop quality at the exact book size with no makeabook.fun mark, plus a fold-and-staple booklet layout. You can re-download it free after edits, which is handy if you update the book each birthday.

That is one of our favorite ideas: make a new all about me book every year. Lined up on a shelf, they become a record of how your child saw themselves at three, five and eight. And if you ever want to turn one into a paperback, our free 7-day guide explains the steps.