As the father of a 2- and 4-year-old, this project is repulsive.

> Like many parents, I found that standard bedtime stories didn't always capture their unique imagination. So, I built Lyra Kids (https://lyra.kids) to turn our nightly ritual into something more magical.

We have the standard template product pitch here (“Unlike our competitors, our product does XYZ”) but turned against _the entirety of children’s literature_.

You really think that many parents find “standard bedtime stories” insufficient?

Look, we have a couple of those books that use your kid’s name and a custom illustration that resembles them. They’re about as sophisticated as a Hallmark card and equally unrewarding. The kids get a kick out of it, but it’s a rare amusement and not actual interest. You don’t talk about the plot or the characters of a Mad Lib.

I’ll set aside my moral outrage and assume that you wanted to build this project no matter what and backed into the product positioning later, because the alternative is too depressing to consider.

> We have the standard template product pitch here (“Unlike our competitors, our product does XYZ”) but turned against _the entirety of children’s literature_.

Thank you! As a 44 year old non-parent this claim was really bothering me, but ya, it's just product-speak! I really hope so, at least. I'm still imagining that there are actually parents out there who think there aren't good enough children's books out there. Like, there is so much good stuff. SOOOOOOO much. When I was being read children's books many of them weren't even contemporary for the time. My grandmother read me Aladdin in the 80s! I was obsessed with the genie of the ring and wrote a story about it. Then the Disney movie came out a few years later and it was all about the genie of the lamp. D'oh. But I digress.

Hell, yeah. Children's Literature is no joke. It is a branch of literature as old as time, and has seen no shortage of depth or variety.