Children love to see their names in print.  And little ones are still learning which letters comprise their names.  That makes these personalized books from Lost My Name a wonderful gift option.

There are two titles available.  The Little Boy(Girl) Who Lost His(Her) Name, and The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home.  The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home is primarily a story about location, exploring where a child’s home fits into the bigger picture of the world.  We don’t have that one, so I’ll leave it at that and we’ll talk some more about the other.

When personalizing The Little Boy(Girl) Who Lost His(Her) Name, there are several different things you can personalize.  Of course you’re going to choose whether your story is for a boy or a girl.  Obviously, mine is for my son, not my daughters.  You can also, to some extent, personalize the appearance of the character in the book, choosing a boy or girl, skin tone that’s the closest fit, etc.  So the little boy throughout Caleb’s story is blonde.

Of course the most obvious part to personalize here is the name.  This forms the core portion of the story.  When the story opens, the child awakes to find his (or her) name has disappeared and must go in search of it.  The bulk of the book consists of encounters with a variety of animals, each of which concludes with the gift of a letter.  (I’m not sure how they handle duplicate letters.)  Of course, at the end, the letters all go together to form the child’s name.

It’s pretty clever, because it doesn’t just teach the child the letters in his name; it also introduces him to some animals and what makes them each special.  (Caleb’s story includes a chameleon, an aardvark, a lion, an elephant, and a bear.)  I also appreciate that they didn’t “dumb down” the vocabulary, but used richly descriptive language.

The only thing I don’t like about it is kind of a minor quibble — and not something I can think of a good way around: it uses all capital letters.  Most of the letters a child sees are lowercase, so it makes more sense to focus on those.  But I’m not sure how one would manage that when I name needs to be capitalized and you’re working with thousands of combinations.  (Caleb’s only complaint was that he wanted it to say “Caleb Nathaniel Ramey,” not just “Caleb.” I think that would be asking a bit much. haha  I’m not sure he’d sit through such a long story!)

Caleb laughed at the story, and enjoyed making elephant sounds and otherwise engaging with it.  He also seems to have really taken to heart the description at the end of the story, of Caleb as a “quite amazingly courageous little boy.”

In terms of production, the book is printed on very heavy, high-quality paper, and the illustrations are whimsical and well-done.  I’m impressed with it and would certainly order from this company again.