15 Jun 2026
What if your children could be the heroes of their own bedtime adventures, or lose themselves in a library of 100 original tales?
Those are the dual concepts behind Becoming, a children’s storytelling app developed at his kitchen table by St Albans single father-of-two James Thompson.
His children, four-year-old Evie, and three-year-old Micah, helped devise and test the principles behind the project, which James is now launching to a wider audience.
“Most parents will identify with bedtimes where you read the same book again and again and again, until it reaches the point where you can recite every word, but it’s just not sustainable to be going to Waterstones and buying a new book every single week.
“So one evening, instead of reading the same book on autopilot, I asked the children what they wanted a story about. A crocodile, Evie said. A dinosaur, Micah shouted. I closed my eyes and made one up – with both of them as the heroes. They were absorbed in a way they hadn’t been before.
“Unfortunately the creative juices aren’t always there at night when you’re tired after a long day, so it got me thinking, what if I could create something to bridge that gap?”
Becoming is aimed at children aged two to 11, operates in 20 different languages, and has built in accessibility for dyslexic readers.
HR operations director James embraced the potential of AI to help realise his dream: “I’m of the belief that AI is here whether we like it or not. I understand why parents are wary of it, but there are real, positive ways we can engage with the technology, and I want Becoming to be one of them.”
“When I was designing Becoming, my focus was on how I could do it in such a way as to be user-friendly and intuitive, but not addictive, and so it evolved organically over time.”
Becoming features a Read Together mode, aimed at children aged two to four, and includes interactive prompts to get them feeling as though they’re taking part in the narrative, while also making decisions about how the story progresses.
These stories feature a cast of original characters which James has devised, including Bramble the tortoise, who makes children feel truly seen; Tock the magpie, who stands up for whoever’s about to be wrongly blamed; Flint the fairy, who shows that accidents can still be beautiful.
“Each character exists because of something I wanted them to leave with a child,” he explained. “It tries to get them thinking and feeling within the story.
“I’m all about feeling as each character feels, so I get each of them to encompass something different.
“Bramble sits at the crossroads and sees different things, Tock is an investigator, who’s all about chasing and getting things right, Flint is insecure and unsure of herself…”
For five to 11-year-olds, the stories are longer and there are more choices to be made, giving readers a greater independence in terms of the journey they embark on.
There are various categories, ranging from traditional quests and historic adventure to different realms like a burrow, a snow world, an archipelago world and a sky world.
James has incorporated real parent feedback on what works and what doesn’t, including writing 100 stories himself instead of relying on AI, and spent months testing the product to ensure it met his own rigorous standards.
“I wouldn’t put something out there that I didn’t feel was genuinely compelling and strong, and told really beautiful stories in the right way. Evie interacts and engages with it, and that, for me, was the kind of taste test as to whether this was actually going to work and be sustainable.
“I’m interested in seeing what kids love and enjoy when it comes to stories, so one thing I added recently was a choice of prose style, which means you can opt for something similar to Roald Dahl, which is quite memorable, so it will have the cadence and rhythm of his writing.
“This helps to ensure it’s not samey and generic, so you can take the same story and change it to various authors’ styles, which puts a completely different lens on it.”
The app is also designed to be very affordable, costing just £6 a month for full access to the whole library of stories: “I don’t want children to not be able to have the benefit of reading, of imagining and the creativity that comes with that.”
All stories are saved to an individual account, but can be downloaded and shared, giving children the chance to create their own book full of their favourite stories. There’s also the opportunity to craft specific user profiles capturing a child’s own personality traits, along with details such as their cultural background, where in the world they live, and whether they have any pets.
“Evie is curious and cheeky, so her stories will reference that, which is quite nice because it’s personalised just to them.
“When you’re selecting the type of story you want, you can add different themes that you can explore through the lens of the characters, creating an emotional resonance that a child will have with a character in a story that they can connect with and see and recognise.
“It’s trying to make the digital experience something that’s positive, accessible, enjoyable and that people connect to.
“There are two things I really care about. Helping more children to read, making it fun and within reach for everyone. And helping them to imagine, to dream, to make sense of their own lives through stories. Stories were a world I escaped into as a child, and I want to give that to as many children as I can.”
Becoming is available on iOS, Android and at yourbecoming.app
