Books By Me™: The Story Belongs to the Child.
Books By Me™ is a young author experience built around one powerful idea: the story belongs to the child. Young creators get the opportunity to develop their own stories, make their own creative decisions, and bring what started in their imagination into the world as a published book.
What Books By Me™ Is
Children are supported throughout the process, but adults do not take over the story. Their ideas, choices, voice, and creative ownership remain at the center — guided along the way by our LIT™ framework (Let Imagination Take Shape™): Explore → Choose → Build → Write.
- Builds creative confidence and ownership
- Strengthens literacy and communication skills
- Gives students meaningful ownership of their work
- Supports identity, imagination, and student voice
Who the Program Serves
Books By Me™ serves young creators who have stories to tell. It is delivered through school and community partnerships, including work with Norfolk Public Schools, and schools, libraries, and youth organizations can bring it to their community.
LitKids Create is an approved NPS Educational Enrichment Vendor.
How the Creative Storytelling Experience Works.
LIT™ (Let Imagination Take Shape™) is a child-centered story-development framework that helps children explore their ideas, choose the story that sparks their curiosity, and shape that idea into a story they are ready to write — while keeping creative ownership in the child's hands.
Explore
What could my story be?
Children are given room to imagine, talk, draw, question, play with possibilities, and follow their interests without pressure to immediately choose or begin writing.
Choose
Which idea has a spark for me?
Children consider their possibilities and identify the idea they feel curious or excited to develop. Adults may notice and reflect a spark, but the child makes the creative choice.
Build
What does my story want to become?
Children give their chosen idea a simple story path using beginning, middle, and end. The goal is not to plan every detail, but to develop enough of the story to be ready to begin writing.
Write
Then, the child is ready to write the story they have chosen and developed.
The child owns the story. The adult guides the discovery.
A note on LIT™LIT™ is a story-development framework, not a writing method. It does not replace writing instruction, grammar instruction, revision, editing, or the established writing process.
From Imagination to Published Book.
Students lead the creative work: their ideas, choices, and voice.
A Published Book
Young creators bring what started in their imagination into the world as a published book. Books By Me™ can include a published student anthology.
An Author Celebration
Books By Me™ creates an unforgettable author celebration experience for young writers.
Beyond the Story: Publishing & Workforce Development
Connecting creativity to real-world skills and career possibilities.
Books By Me™ goes beyond helping children write their own stories. Through the program’s publishing component, students have an opportunity to discover how an idea becomes a finished book and learn about the creative professionals who help bring stories to readers.
Students can be introduced to different aspects of the publishing industry, including editing, book design, production, distribution, and the business of publishing. This exposure connects storytelling to real-world career possibilities while helping students recognize the practical value of their creativity.
The publishing experience also creates opportunities to practice skills that extend beyond the classroom, including communication, problem-solving, decision-making, collaboration, and seeing a project through to completion.
For schools and youth organizations, this provides an additional connection between creative literacy, early career exploration, and foundational workforce readiness skills.
At its heart, Books By Me™ remains centered on student voice and creative ownership. The publishing component simply helps children see another possibility for where their ideas can take them.
Books By Me™ in Action.
- Books By Me™ has been brought to young writers at Lindenwood Elementary School.
- LitKids Create partners with Norfolk Public Schools to provide creative literacy, storytelling, and student publishing experiences.
- LitKids Create’s first student anthology, I Got a Story to Tell: Original Stories by Young Authors, brought nine young writers into print and reached Amazon #1 New Release status.
What a Books By Me™ Partnership Can Include.
Workshops
Books By Me™ workshops bring the LIT™ framework — Explore, Choose, Build, Write — to young writers in school and community settings.
A Published Student Anthology
Where a program includes it, student stories can come together in a published anthology.
An Author Celebration
A celebration gives young writers an unforgettable moment to be recognized as authors.
Reach out to talk through what would fit your school, library, or youth organization.
Bring Books By Me™ to Your School, Library, or Youth Organization.
Tell us about your students and your goals, and we’ll talk through what a Books By Me™ experience could look like for your community.