A personalised book for grandparents takes a real person's life and turns it into an illustrated hardback the grandchildren can hold. Ysy was one of the first people to make one. The book is about her husband, Andy: a teacher who left England for Zimbabwe in the eighties, raised a family there, and is now a grandfather of two.
She kept notes through the whole process and agreed to talk us through them. Her words, lightly edited for length and shared with her blessing.
What was it like to see your husband's life as a book?
"It's deeply touching. Generally what we walk around with are photo albums, photos on the wall, maybe some videos, but they're never collected in one place. This is a proper, published book about Andy and his life. There isn't a book like this in the whole world. It's a book made only for this family. It's something to cherish."
Did it look exactly like him?
"No, and that's the point. Years ago in Harare, my parents had all four of us children painted by a portrait artist. None of the portraits looked exactly like us, the way a photograph does, because that's what a portrait is. It's impressionistic. But we loved them. We cherished them.
"You have to understand it like reading a book and then seeing the film. The producer takes liberties. They change things. But you're not reading the book any more, you're watching the film, and you have to accept it for what it is. It's a romantic product, in the old meaning of the word. A romance was a tale that would be told, where the storyteller embellished a little. There's poetic licence.
"I'm keeping the back cover, the two of us in Greece. I'm about five foot two. In this picture I'm tall and slim with long dark hair. Even when I was young I never quite looked like that. But it's like a dream. It appeals to the romantic in me."
Which page was your favourite?
"There's one of Andy carrying a child through the bush and coming across a lioness. He'd gone out on a bush walk with our young son on his shoulders, and he thought he was looking at a rock, until the rock turned out to be a lioness. That's one of our most cherished family stories, and we have no photograph of it. Now it's illustrated, and it will be there forever. The thorn trees, the African scrub, the white-hot sun. It's true to the Zimbabwean bush, and we'd never have been able to photograph it. It's a little gem for us.
"And there's one that made me laugh. When Andy first came out to teach in Zimbabwe, he came down by local bus. The book put him in a little light aircraft instead, arriving like someone important. We could never have dreamed he'd be flown down. But it's such a charming, imagined idea, I've kept it. And funnily enough, we did later know a safari pilot. So in a way it talks to the real life we lived.
"A book has to have some life in it. Nobody wants to read 'I was born, then I ate my porridge, then I started walking.'"
How did it feel having the pictures made by AI?
"It's been an eye-opener. It's shown me what AI can do, up to a point, and what it can't. I found it personally very interesting.
"My son George said, 'Mum, AI hallucinates.' And it does. It picks up something vague and runs with it. I felt like saying, why don't you use your intelligence, please? But of course you're talking to a machine, not a person.
"What I loved were the moments where the AI's imagination came into the fore, the reimagining of our lives and our experiences through a different lens. You imagine your beloved to be more gorgeous than they even are.
"And I think it's generational. Younger people are completely okay with this. For years people have played with photos on their phones, adding things, enjoying what you can do. If you come to it with that kind of open heart, it's wonderful."
How did your family react?
"The grandchildren love books, and they were quite taken with the idea that people they know, us, are in a proper book they can hold and read. My seven-year-old granddaughter sat and read about herself and about Andy. That is the point of your creations.
"One picture can spark a whole conversation. You see a photo of the football team, or the horse riding, and someone says, I didn't even know you rode horses, where was that? One picture, and you extrapolate from it."
Would you recommend it to others?
"Yes. Having been through the process, and knowing it's much more streamlined now, yes I would. It's different from a photo book. It's its own thing. It's not something you can just buy in a bookshop. It's a unique thing."
---
Frequently asked questions
What is a personalised book for grandparents? It is an illustrated hardback built from a real grandparent's life — their childhood, their stories, their family. You share photos and memories, and the book turns them into a story the grandchildren can read and keep.
Does the book look exactly like the person? Not exactly. The illustrations are characterful portraits rather than photographs. You review every page and can regenerate any image up to 50 times before printing, so you stay in control of the likeness.
What does it cost and how long does it take? A Memolio book is a 24-page full-colour hardback for around €45. Sharing your photos and stories takes about thirty minutes, the first draft is ready within a couple of hours, and hardcovers arrive in roughly seven working days across the EU and UK. See how it works.
Is it available in English and German? Yes. Memolio books can be made in English or German.
To make one for your own family, start with how it works or read what a personalised book for grandparents is.