Mum didn't expect us to have opinions.
When Mum first said "what if we turned your into a something to read, like a book?" — I don't think she expected what came next.
Jia and I had a lot to say. About what should be in it. What shouldn't. What felt real and what felt wrong. She was surprised. I think she thought she was taking some printouts for us.
It turned out we were making it into a book with her.
There's a difference.
How the book actually evolved.
The book went through three major rotations. It didn't arrive finished. It got there through rounds of feedback — each one changing something significant.
The First Print
Flat cartoon characters. Bright colours. Simple layouts. It looked like a mobile game. Jai and Jia both said no immediately. Too young. Not serious enough. Not what they had in their heads.
The original responsible spread — flat design, before the Perth review.
"The cartoon pictures need to go. I want real people, real situations. Something that feels more professional."— Jai, on seeing the first printed version
That one call changed every illustration in the book. That's what happens when you actually ask a kid what they think and then listen.
Mum's note: A subtle lesson and cue for me towards inclusivity and diversity of representation.
The Perth Review
We were going to Australia in the summer, and Mum had an entire Activity Box for the car rides. The book review was one of the most fun things I did on those long drives — so many opinions came from just sitting in the back seat, watching things go by.
Mum's note: environment matters. Some of the best feedback came from a moving car.
Perth — going through every page with a pen
"More professional" · "Maybe more text / story" · "Fable" · "Keep the Habit Tracker"
— Jai's actual handwriting on the pages in PerthOne thing that stood the test of time and every iteration: the Habit Tracker.
The stories that didn't make it.
The first version of the stories were called JJ Spy Stories — bedtime stories the whole family made up together, with missions set by a school principal called Mr Considine. Real characters. Real school situations.
Jai read them and said no. Too personal. Too specific to their life. Nobody else would connect to them.
He suggested changing all the missions to family missions instead — something any family could do together. That one call changed the entire feel of the book. A private story became a universal one.
Jai's handwriting: a big X — "Change all. Only write introduction and the stories."
Family Missions — Big Questions, Habit Tracker, Joint Mission, Future Mission Menu.
That's what an author does. Decides what stays private and what goes into the book. Jai was 10 when he made that call.
The book had two authors. One wrote. One tested.
Jia was seven. She wasn't asked to read the book — she was asked to do every activity in it and say what she actually thought. No filter.
Jia's words
"My brother wrote the affirmations. I helped make the activities fun for kids my age. Some were too baby — so I told Mum to change them."
"Some were still too easy. But Mum kept them anyway. She said — it's not an olympiad competition."
— Jia, age 7
I think: "If a 7-year-old says it's too baby, it goes. No debate."
Jia's Character — Before & After
What the book became.
Everything before this was argument. This is what survived it.
Left page: the fable. Right page: the activity. That structure — story then action, feeling then proof — came entirely from Jai asking for something to read, not just do.
The reviewed pages — what the final structure came from
21 Affirmations
Each affirmation has its own fable — a short story written for a child — and an activity on the facing page. Story first, then proof. Feeling first, then action.
Build Your Own Bookmarks
So other children can do it themselves. Cut, colour, personalise. The bookmark section was designed so every reader leaves with something they made with their own hands.
Bookmarks — Before & After
Family Missions
Something for the whole family to do together. Not just a children's book — a prompt for conversations that matter, across the dinner table and beyond.
The Giving
Jai believes a book about self-belief shouldn't just stay on a shelf. Part of what this book is about is asking: who else needs to feel this?
Yes, we used AI. Here's what that actually means.
People ask: "Did AI make the book?" The honest answer: AI did about 90% of the writing and design work. Mum used Claude for the words, Canva's AI connector for the layouts and illustrations.
But here's what we noticed. The same AI, with different prompts, gave completely different results. The quality wasn't in the tool. It was in knowing what to ask for.
Jai directed. The AI drafted. Jai judged. The things that stayed in the book were the things Jai said yes to.
Mum did the same with the design — she knew what she wanted each page to feel like, and she kept going until it felt right. That's not nothing. That's the whole job.
What we actually learned.
Mum wore her technical development hat. Jia and I wore our critic hats. What happened in between was real teamwork — real debates, real negotiations, real disagreements.
For example: I wanted to write "annoy sister" as one of the activities. This was right after Jia and I had a fight over a packet of candy. Mum said no. Alas.
"She too did the work."— Jai, on Mum's role
The difference between a book that feels like it was made by a machine and one that feels like it was made by a child — is the child. The opinions. The "no, change this." The one word written on a page in Perth that became a whole new section.
It's been an interesting learning into Canva AI, Claude, data sources and databases — what Mum calls the architecture behind ideas. She talks about a Well Designed Life, and this book being its founding work.
The things that stayed in the book were the things Jai said yes to. That's not AI. That's authorship.
