Your Arab or Middle Eastern American Child, Hero of Their Own Storybook

Upload one photo and your child, with their own face and their name spelled the way you spell it, becomes the hero of an original storybook, with Teta, Jiddo or Maman Bozorg written in by name.

The forms caught up in 2024. The bookshelf is still catching up.

Arab, Middle Eastern and North African American families come from many places, and often from more than one of them under a single roof. This page is for all of them, including the Iranian, Chaldean, Assyrian and Armenian families whose road to America ran through the region. The details belong to each family: the dolma that two grandmothers make two different ways, and the standing argument about which way is right; the grandfather who is Jiddo in one house and Geddo in the next, and the child who answers to both.

Very little of that has made it into picture books. When a child from one of these families does appear, it is usually in a story about being from somewhere else, or as the hero’s friend, or in a book pulled off the shelf for a heritage unit. The federal government only added a Middle Eastern or North African category to its race-and-ethnicity standards in 2024; the forms, and the bookshelf, are still catching up. What is missing is the ordinary stuff: an Omar who befriends a dragon, a Roya who commands the rocket, an Aram who gets lost in the museum and finds his own way home, with a grandfather cheering from the sidelines and nobody stopping to explain any of it.

That is the book we make. Your child’s name printed the way you type it. Their face, not an approximate one. A family that looks and sounds like yours, inside a story that is simply theirs, and that starts with the child rather than the explanation.

One photo, nine styles, and Teta written in by name

It starts with one photo of your child. That is all the illustrator needs. From it, Akoni Books draws your child as the hero of the book, and nothing about them is guessed from a name or a background. Their hair, their skin, their eyes are drawn as they actually are, whatever that is, and the same face appears consistently on every page. Before you pay, you see a free preview of the cover and the opening pages, so you can check the likeness yourself. The photo is used only to illustrate the book, never shared, never used to train AI models, and deleted within 24 hours.

You choose from nine art styles: Whimsical Watercolor, Bold Cartoon, Soft Pastel, Anime / Ghibli, Modern Flat, Pixel Art, Retro Golden Book, 3D Cinematic or Paper-Cut Collage.

Family members join the story through words rather than photos. On the create page, open Deeper customization and use Include in the Story to write “Teta, who grows mint on her balcony and never lets anyone leave hungry” or “Baba Bozorg, who falls asleep during the football and denies it”, and the illustrator draws those characters from your description. One hero per book, drawn from the one photo; everyone else is written in, using the words your family actually uses: Teta, Jiddo, Bibi, Geddo, Khalo, Amto, Maman Bozorg, Tatik, Papik, the cousins, the cat. The story is written in English; Arabic, Farsi and Armenian editions are not available. A bilingual edition adds Spanish, French, Portuguese or Mandarin Chinese, with both languages on every spread, and for the many families who also read in French, the English and French edition is a natural fit.

From bedtime in Dearborn to a summer in Amman

A book with your child’s face on the cover does not sit on the shelf. It gets read at bedtime until the words are memorized and handed to Teta the moment she walks in. She reads the English page aloud, then retells it in Arabic because that is how Jiddo likes it, adding details of her own. It gets packed in the suitcase for the summer in Amman or Beirut, where the cousins pass it around and look for their own names inside. Every book opens with a dedication page, a warm note written for your child and signed from whoever you choose, “From Teta and Jiddo” or “From Tatik”, which is where the gift becomes a keepsake. Every order also includes the Hero Pack, free printables starring your child, with coloring pages, wall art, stickers, bookmarks and a certificate, so the book spills over into the rest of the house.

The occasions write themselves: a birthday, a new baby brother, the first day of kindergarten, the end-of-year certificate from Saturday school, or the aunt who flew a long way and wants to bring something back for the cousins. Printed books are produced locally by Gelato and ship to 55 countries, so the same book can go to the cousins in Dearborn and the grandparents in Toronto, and a three-hardcover bundle is $99.

The digital PDF is $9.99 and ready in minutes after purchase. The 8” x 8” softcover is $29.99 and the hardcover is $39.99; printed books ship in 5–7 business days with shipping included. Every book passes automated checks, and printed books get a human review before press. If the child does not light up when they see themselves in the book, email us within 30 days of delivery and we refund you in full, and they keep the book.