25 books we've actually made
Every book below was written and drawn from scratch, start to finish. None of them share a story, and none of them share a main character. All of them were made in Japanese first. The first 3 have since been remade in English: same pictures, English words set onto the pages by the same typesetter that makes your PDF — so what you see on those cards is the English edition itself. The rest are still the Japanese originals, with English titles we wrote for this page.
Digital PDF · Email us two or three photos after checkout · Delivered within 7 business days or your money back
All 25 books
One picture per book, with a line or two about what happens in it. If you'd rather look by subject — trains, bugs, magic, food, the day a baby was born — there's a list by subject further down.
The Magic Camera
Japanese original: まほうのカメラ
English edition — the page above is the real thing
The next day, Riko went looking. The bench where she and Dad sat. Click. The glove from their game of catch. Click. The donut shop. Click. Seeds of a smile, come to me!
An old camera found in the attic turns out to be magic: everyone it photographs breaks into a smile. One picture at a time, a town that had been looking at its feet brightens up.
Magic and fantasy
The Magic Yarn
Japanese original: まほうのけいと
English edition — the page above is the real thing
He started over, again and again — and there it was. A small, lumpy sun. It began to glow, and the whole room turned warm.
Grandma has caught a cold, and her half-knitted scarf is waiting. Together with Koro the ball of yarn, a night of knitting begins in the snow.
Everyday life
The Little Music Band
Japanese original: ちいさなおんがくたい
English edition — the page above is the real thing
Ta-daaa! Boom-boom-boom! Sway, sway — and clap! The little music band marched, and Taiga's clapping tied every sound together. The whole town filled up with color.
A child whose clapping is always a beat behind slips under a park bench into a world where sound can be seen. A story about a place where being off the beat is exactly what is needed.
Everyday life
The Umbrella Shop on a Rainy Day
あめのひのかさやさん
On a rainy day with no outdoor play, there is an umbrella shop down an alley that was never there before. The tree frog who runs it leads the way to the one day of the year the umbrellas get restless.
Magic and fantasy
The Zoo at Night
よるのどうぶつえん
Going back for a water bottle left behind on a school trip leads to the night fair the zoo holds once a year. Ho-chan the owl comes to fetch them, and the zoo is nothing like it is by day.
Animals and bugs
An Adventure in Bath Land
おふろのくにのぼうけん
Baths are the worst when shampoo stings your eyes. Then the plug comes out, and Pukari the duck goes down with them into a country made of bubbles.
Everyday life
The Town Under the Soil
つちのしたのまち
Helping out in the field is fun; eating the vegetables is not. One carrot refuses to come up, and pulling on it drops them into a town at the bottom of the hole.
Food
The Mail Carrier of the Sea
うみのゆうびんやさん
A child who likes putting letters in bottles and sending them out to sea gets a visit from a dolphin with a red satchel, asking for help with the deliveries.
Animals and bugs
The Weather Factory
てんきこうじょう
A scrap of cloud floating in a puddle turns into a staircase and an invitation to the weather factory above the sky. Rain and thunder, it turns out, are made by somebody.
Magic and fantasy
The Library at Night
よるのとしょかん
Back at the library for a forgotten pair of gloves, the shelves that should be pitch dark are glowing gold. A bookmark fairy shows them around the library at night.
Magic and fantasy
The Bread Fairy
パンのようせい
Komugi the fairy can be seen only by a child who loves the smell of fresh bread, and she shows them how a loaf gets made, start to finish.
Food
Crayon Magic
くれよんのまほう
The yellow door drawn on the wall really opens, into a country made only of the colors they drew. The red dragon they drew is waiting on the other side.
Magic and fantasy
I Came from the Land of Stars
ほしのくにから きたよ
A book about the day a child was born, told from before the birth: from a far-off land of stars, they spotted two people on Earth and came to meet them.
The day they were born
To You, Whom We Love
だいすきな きみへ
From the weeks before the birth to coming home from the hospital, the night feeds, and the first smile. The days after a baby arrives, in the order they happened.
The day they were born
Thank You for Being Born
うまれてきてくれて、ありがとう
Everything the whole family felt while waiting, from the months when the baby was still in the womb, written as words spoken to the baby.
The day they were born
The Day I Became a Princess
おひめさまになった日
A toy tiara and a mirror turn into a real castle. A kingdom that has lost its smile gets it back through kindness.
Magic and fantasy
The World of Bugs
むしのせかい
One look through a magnifying glass and they are the same size as a bug. A ladybug bus takes them on a tour of the world in the grass.
Animals and bugs
The Magic Lesson
まほうのレッスン
A book opened at the library leads to a school of magic. The last spell they are taught, the one for telling someone how you feel, turns out to be the courage to say it out loud.
Magic and fantasy
A Trip by Train
でんしゃのたび
A toy train grows to full size and sets off along the Rainbow Line, stopping at a station on top of the clouds and one in a field of flowers.
Vehicles and space
The Animals' Secret
どうぶつたちのひみつ
Left behind in the zoo after closing time, they hear the animals start to talk, and get invited to a secret party.
Animals and bugs
The Little Ninja
ちいさなにんじゃ
Strike a ninja pose and the room spins into a ninja village. Three trials are waiting: throwing stars, silent footsteps, and the art of the double.
Magic and fantasy
Off to the Land of Sweets
おかしのくにへ
Cutting out cookies opens a door in the dough, into a country with a chocolate river and mountains of ice cream.
Food
Aboard the Rocket
ロケットにのって
On a night at the telescope, a small rocket lands in the garden. Pounding rice cakes on the moon, then sliding down the rings of Saturn.
Vehicles and space
The Kingdom Under the Sea
うみのおうこく
The bathwater starts to sparkle and turns into the sea. With Marin the mermaid, they explore a castle made of coral.
Animals and bugs
Papa's Bakery
パパのパンやさん
Wanting more time with a father who is up at three every morning to bake, they slip into the bakery at night and fly off with Komugin, a lump of bread dough.
Food
Which of these you can read in English
We started out making these books in Japan, so every book on this page was written in Japanese first. For the first 3 we went back and made an English edition: the pictures are the ones the Japanese book was drawn with, and the English words on them were written for those pictures and set onto the pages by the same typesetter that makes the PDF you'd receive. Those cards show a spread from inside the English edition, not a cover — the covers still have the Japanese title drawn into the artwork, and we did not repaint them.
On the other 22 cards, the words you can see drawn into the artwork are Japanese and the English titles are ours, written so you can tell the books apart. Nothing on those cards has been set in English yet.
Your book is not any of these translated. It's written in English from the first draft, pictures and all. What the English editions above show you is the part a translation can't: how much English actually lands on one spread, and what it looks like sitting on the picture.
If you want to read a whole book before you buy, we've put a whole book online in English — the cover and all 9 spreads. That one is not on this page: it was written in English from the first draft, so the words set onto its artwork are English, not a translation printed underneath.
By subject
The same books, grouped by what they're about. Nothing here is a fixed catalog — these are just the ones that have been made so far, and a book about something else entirely is the normal case, not a special request.
- Vehicles and space (2): A Trip by Train, Aboard the Rocket
- Animals and bugs (5): The Zoo at Night, The Mail Carrier of the Sea, The World of Bugs, The Animals' Secret, The Kingdom Under the Sea
- Magic and fantasy (8): The Magic Camera, The Umbrella Shop on a Rainy Day, The Weather Factory, The Library at Night, Crayon Magic, The Day I Became a Princess, The Magic Lesson, The Little Ninja
- Food (4): The Town Under the Soil, The Bread Fairy, Off to the Land of Sweets, Papa's Bakery
- Everyday life (3): The Magic Yarn, The Little Music Band, An Adventure in Bath Land
- The day they were born (3): I Came from the Land of Stars, To You, Whom We Love, Thank You for Being Born
About these books
These are the actual pictures from books we've made, not mockups. Some cards show the cover; for the earliest books no cover art was ever drawn, and for the English editions the cover is still the Japanese one, so those cards show a page from inside instead. The name, the age and the face of the main character are different in every one, and so is the plot — this isn't a template with a name swapped in, so nothing you see here will arrive as somebody else's book.
None of the children in these books are real children. We made all of them ourselves as samples, and we don't publish books that were made for customers.
What you'd be buying is a print-ready PDF for $9.99, delivered within 7 business days. The pricing page says what that covers, and how it works walks through the four steps and says exactly where the AI stops and a person takes over.
How ordering works
Three steps, and only the first one happens on this site.
- You pay $9.99 and tell us the child's name, age and whatever you want in the story on the payment page.
- You email two or three photos of them to info@kater.jp from the address you paid with. There's no upload form here.
- The finished book comes back to that address as a print-ready PDF within 7 business days. If we miss that, you get a full refund without asking.
One thing worth knowing before you count backwards from a date: we're in Japan, so business days here are Japanese weekdays. Weekends and Japanese public holidays don't count, and they don't fall on the same days as yours. How the 7 days are counted is written out on the refund page. If your date is tight, email us before you pay and we'll tell you whether it fits.
Related pages
- Look inside a book — a different book, written in English from the first draft, start to finish
- Pricing — what $9.99 covers, and why there's no hardcover price
- How it works — the four steps, and what to send us after you buy
- FAQ — the questions people ask before they order
Digital PDF · Email us two or three photos after checkout · Delivered within 7 business days or your money back