Founder's Journal

The first few nights, the boys enjoyed making stories together. They loved watching their wild ideas come alive, listening, imagining, and laughing it out loud.

Then something small but magical happened.

When they listened to songs or stories, Connor or Carter would suddenly ask, "What does whooshed mean? What does zoom mean?"

Not because I didn't want to answer, but as a non-native English speaker, sometimes I had to pause and look up the words myself. That moment sparked an idea:

What if the app could help kids (and parents like me) learn together, instantly, interactively, joyfully?

So we built it.

Now, in the KindleWood Kids app, every word is tappable, kids can hear pronunciation, get explanations, and grow their vocabulary in a natural, playful way.

Over the past three nights, I've watched Connor completely immersed, tapping each word, listening carefully, and even writing them down on paper. (Of course, he chose a few funny ones to start! 😄)

Even little Carter, who usually runs around swinging his sword and hammer, now lies next to his brother, tapping words, sketching, and learning too.

They still argue over which story to listen to, so yes, we now have two iPads. 😄
But watching them learn together, inspiring each other, that's the real magic.

And just when I thought I was the one building the "smart" app, Carter proved otherwise.

When Carter tapping the word snowman and hearing its explanation, my three-year-old looked at the screen and said:

"Moana, play snowman movie!" (He meant Frozen 😅)

Looks like he's already thinking ahead of the founder.

We've added interactive learning for now, but my vision goes further, a world where kids can talk with the stories they love. Imagine role play between a child and AI characters, or a Q&A space where kids freely ask questions and the system learns to respond in their language and tone. It's not easy to process little kids' voices, but if there's one thing I've learned, it's that curiosity always finds a way.

Today, while working on Chinese storybooks creation flow, I wanted the narration to sound truly authentic. I started by trying OpenAI's TTS voice, it was fluent, but something felt off. The tone, rhythm, it didn't sound right.

I looked into other options, like Azure's Chinese TTS, which can sound smoother. But before testing more AI models, I thought,why not just record it myself?

So I did. Recorded myself for the story my kids and I created together.

Later, when I played the story back, my boys listened carefully and said:

"Mama, I like your voice better than the other one (AI voice over)."

That one sentence made my day. It reminded me that while AI can do incredible things, generate stories, draw beautiful pictures, translate languages, there are some parts of storytelling that only a human heart can give.

Because no AI voice can replace the comfort of a parent's "once upon a time."

I was thinking to train AI to clone human voices, but now this made me pause and wonder: Do we need a AI cloned human voice at all?

Maybe the slight imperfections, the uneven breaths, the laughter tucked into a word, those are what make a story ALIVE.

Every evening, when we open KindleWood Studio to create a new story together, I see something magical happen, a network effect of creativity.

It starts with one small idea, sometimes just a silly sentence or a "what if this happens" from my kids, and then it grows.

Last night, Connor came up with a wild story:

"A dragon set fire to the ocean and turned the water purple. No one could live there anymore. So Connor gathered Daddy, Mommy, and his little brother to take the purple water to the Antarctic and refill the ocean with blue water again."

When we turned his words into vivid illustrations, watching the ocean turn purple, the family marching bravely to save it, his eyes lit up. The moment he saw his story come alive, he immediately said, "Let's add more! The dragon come back set the fire on sand beach...!"

And then, something even more beautiful happened.

My three-year-old, who had been quietly watching, started telling his version:

"A dragon set fire to the ocean and turned it purple…(I thought he gonna simply copy brother's story, but he twisted)... but then the dragon felt sad and turned it back blue again."

Two brothers. Two versions of the same story.
One about teamwork and courage, the other about empathy and change.

Their imaginations, though inspired by the same spark, reflected who they are:

It made me realize: creativity spreads.
When children see their ideas matter, it fuels a loop, from imagination to creation, from one mind to another.