A picture-book writing program

Children direct the AI
and keep the pen.

Got a student who'd rather do anything than write? Give them a superpower — and watch the writers and storytellers emerge with their very first picture book.

  • Free to use
  • Ages 7–13
  • 4–8 sessions
Explore the curriculumTry Story Sprout Studio
Illustration of five students gathered around a laptop at a classroom table, planning a picture book together. Storybooks, page sketches and notebooks are spread across the table, and a whiteboard behind them reads “Every idea matters. Every story begins together.”

Designed with researchers from MIT, Carnegie Mellon and UC Irvine

From a blank page to a finished book

  • Create stories

    Children develop their ideas and write the story by hand, in their own words.

  • Illustrate with AI

    Children describe a scene, and the AI illustrator renders an image from that description.

  • Review and revise

    Children decide whether the image matches their idea, then clarify what they want to see.

  • Make a real book

    The finished story becomes a picture book they can read aloud to the class and take home.

Stories that our students created

Real books, written and illustrated by children aged 7–13 over an eight-session class. Every word is theirs.

View all stories

What you would teach

Four session decks, free to download and use. Classes run as 4 to 8 sessions.

See the full curriculum

Illustration of an educator leading an online Story Sprout training session. Six participants appear on a video call beside a slide titled “Storytelling in the Classroom”, with a Story Sprout educator guide, workshop notes and picture books spread across the desk.

For educators & volunteers

Training webinars

Story Sprout runs webinars for educators and volunteers who want to bring the program to their own classroom or community group. In 45 minutes we walk through the curriculum, the studio, and what a session looks like in practice — and you leave with the slides you need to run it. The training, the curriculum, the studio and the AI illustrations are all free.

  • Research & Code

    Our research, and the open-source code behind the studio.

    View research

  • About the program

    How Story Sprout works, and who it is for.

    Learn more

  • Donate

    Support helps more children create and share their stories.

    Donate