REVIEW – Penwizard Personalised Princess Potty Book

About Penwizard

Penwizard is a personalised children’s book company formed in 2004, developing innovative personalised products using ‘web to print’ technology, linking customers’ personal data to a digital printing press. Unlike some other personalised books, Penwizard is unique in that customers can personalise the illustrations as well as the words, making the characters in the book represent people they know and love! Penwizard digitally print all of their products in the UK to the highest specifications using technology jointly developed with Hewlett Packard.

Parents will love making their child the star of their very own personalised book, including the child’s name and illustrations.

Penwizard produce a range of personalised children’s books including Adventure Books, Peppa Pig, Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom, In the Night Garden and The Snowman and he Snowdog. They also produce range of photo based calendars and diaries.

About the Book

We all know potty training can be tough – that’s why Penwizard’s new personalised potty training book guides children step-by-step through the process to help them understand what’s involved.

Follow your little Princess on her potty training adventure. Your child will see herself in the illustrations and her name printed throughout her own Potty training book. This personalised children’s book is clear, informative and includes fun pictures of your child learning all about potty training. Not only does this unique potty training book motivate your child to using the potty, but aims to tackle common anxieties toddlers may have about using their potty, as they ‘see’ themselves in the pictures of their own personalised book.

The book guides your child step-by-steps to encourage your little one to get the idea of moving on from nappies to the potty and help her understand what’s involved. This book is perfect for helping girls feel confident and motivated about using the potty.

This is the same story as Potty Pirate and Potty Prince in the same range, and the books are suitable for boys (princes) and girls (princesses) aged 18 months plus.

The book retails at £14.99 with £2.50 UK postage (multiple purchase discounts available)

Our Experience

Erin has just turned two, and has only recently started the potty journey. So far, whilst we have a potty and she understands the concept (saying “wee wee” and quite happily sitting on it), we are yet to have a successful potty visit!

Erin loves to be read to, and loves flicking through the pages of the book as I read out the text, and so a book about potty training felt like the perfect way to reinforce the process.

The process of personalising your book on the Penwizard website is really straight forward. There are 3 different designs of Potty book – Prince, Princess and Pirate, and you can choose which ever you feel is best suited to your child.

Using the online forms, you then simply add in the relevant details, including gender, first name, surname and add a personal message if you wish. We decided to pen a message to Erin saying how proud we were of her for being a big girl, but you can write whatever you like, or if you prefer leave this section blank.

A preview of the character appears on the screen in front of you, and edits you then make to the child’s characteristics are reflected on screen to show how the finished illustration will look. For the girl, we were able to choose from 9 different hairstyles – some long, some short, and some curly, with some tied back and some loose. One of the styles matched Erin’s short kick wave hair perfectly, so this was a bit of a no brainer! The hair colours available are Black, Dark Brown, Light Brown, Ginger and Blonde. I know some of my redhead friends will be really pleased with this, as quite often they can be overlooked!

The child has a choice of 4 different shades for skin tone, and can even have glasses added (in two different styles) if required.

The book then asks you to specify the name of a responsible adult who will be helping the child with their potty training e.g. mummy, daddy. There is only the option for one here, so we chose to put Mummy, as I tend to be at home more in the day than Mike.

Once we had entered all the details, you simply press PREVIEW, which shows an example of the cover page of the book – in our case – Princess Erin’s Potty. The cover looks great, and I knew that Erin would be chuffed to bits when she saw the little girl that looked so much like her!

The book arrived very quickly, just a few days after we had created it online and was well packaged

Reading with Erin

The book was smaller than I expected, but actually I think this is a good thing. The book is the perfect size for its target age group, in that it is small enough and light enough for her to hold herself despite being a hard back cover. It is also sturdy enough for her to turn the pages herself without wripping it to shreads!

We have been working to teach Erin slowly (with no pressure!) about what a potty is and what it is used for, so were using the book to try and reiterate what we have already verbally told her.

Erin enjoyed the pictures and interactive nature of the book, particularly the pages that asked her to choose her own potty, and pick a pair of pants from those pictured. When we pointed at the girl in the book and said Erin she smiled as if she recognised that it was supposed to be her.

Erin will quite often pick this book up and start flicking through the pages on her own.

As a parent who is starting the potty training journey, I think this is a great way of reinforcing a message about the potty and what happens next after nappies! It helps reassure children that having the odd accident whilst they are learning is ok, and that Mummy will still be proud of her no matter what. This is something that I think is particularly important for Erin, as she does tend to get quite embarrassed if ever she wees without a nappy – hence why we had such difficulty getting a sample from her at a recent visit to the hospital!

Overall, this is a fun and engaging way to reinforce the message of potty training to toddlers in a way that doesn’t feel pressured or over powering. The personalised element adds that real special factor to help the child feel that they really are becoming a big girl / big boy!

Pros:

• Uses your child’s full name, and first name throughout.
• Attractive character and illustrations throughout.
• Interactive book, encouraging child to “pick their favourite” from a choice of potty’s and pants!
• On ordering, can customise the look of the character including skin tone, hair style and hair colour, to most accurately represent your child. The one we have chosen is uncanny for Erin!!
• Small enough for the child to hold and flick through themselves.
• Sturdy hard back cover.
• Fast Delivery and good communication

Cons:

• The story itself isn’t the most entertaining on its own as it serves quite a practical purpose, about a child getting out of nappies, into pants and learning to wee and poo in a toilet. That said, it covers everything I would expect for a child learning the process from scratch, and is engaging and interactive for them as they read.
• At £14.99 RRP, there are cheaper potty training books on the market, however, we really love the personalised element of this book which makes it just that little bit special!

*This post was originally published in June 2015. See Penwizard website for current range.