Written for the age they're actually at

Every book is the same length as an object — 34 pages, 15 illustrated spreads — but the amount of writing on each page, and the kind of writing it is, changes a great deal. The age you choose is not a label on the cover. It sets the sentence length, how much text sits beside each illustration, how large the type is printed, and how complicated the story is allowed to get.

The shape of the story changes with it. A book for a baby or toddler is a gentle cycle of discovery in three-to-seven word sentences, with repetition, sound words and counting, and no real problem to solve. By three to five, there is a small problem, and the child notices it, suggests something, and helps carry it out. From six to nine the plot runs over several steps, with real dialogue and choices that matter to how it ends. For ten and over the sentences vary in length, the child's own thoughts appear on the page, and the challenge is allowed to be genuinely difficult — though never frightening or graphic.

Choose for how they listen, not for how old they are. A four-year-old who sits through long stories is better served by the 6 to 9 band than by the one their birthday says. A seven-year-old who is still finding reading hard will enjoy the 3 to 5 band more, and there is nothing on the cover or inside the book that names an age, so nobody has to know which one you picked.

If the book is a gift and you are not certain, the younger band is the safer mistake: a child who has outgrown it still gets a book about themselves, whereas one who cannot follow it puts it down. You will see the finished story in full before anything is printed, so if the level looks wrong when you read it, that is the moment to change it.