The Story Behind Our Stories

Night after night, we wished that engaging bath books with substantial stories existed to make bathtime better.

...so we decided to create them ourselves.

Our inspiration

A better routine

One night, after a string of challenging bathtimes with my toddler that wouldn’t sit still in the tub, and an evening routine that was revving up instead of winding down, I introduced a bath book to bring some calm to the chaos.

And, the bath book worked great. So great, in fact, that I needed more. But when searching for more bath books, longer ones—with a story arc and original characters—didn’t seem to exist.

So, I wrote them myself. With the help of the talented illustrator Ivana Markovic, the fanciful world of the Walla-Walla-Wando Watering Hole (the setting of the inaugural Bathies Books collection) and its charming characters was born.

Our vision

A better bathtime

We created Bathies because we knew bathtime could be better. Better for your kids, and better for you. Not only as a calming tool, but also as a way to provide incremental reading time during a daily ritual and build on the routine that research shows kids crave.

Here’s to better bathtimes, for everyone.

Our commitment

A better world

At Bathies, we believe deeply in the lessons of our books, specifically in helping others. That’s why we’re donating a portion of proceeds from each sale to charitable organizations.

Beyond that, we want to empower you (and, hopefully, eventually, your children) to be involved in giving, so we’re inviting you to choose from a curated list of six organizations your purchase benefits at checkout.

Our Impact

As parents, we know the benefits of additional daily reading and of strong engagement during routines. But don’t just take our word for it:

“Exposure to words is the single most important thing that you can do to help build the language pathways in your child’s brain.” -Laura Phillips, PsyD, senior director of the Learning and Development Center at the Child Mind Institute

“'You can turn almost any home-based activity or interaction into an opportunity.’ But bath time, feeding, diaper changes and getting dressed present the best opportunities for both babies and toddlers. ‘It is in those caregiving moments that some of the biggest brain boosting interactions occur.'” -Dr. Aliza Pressman, developmental psychologist and author of “The Five Principles of Parenting”

“The more you read to your child the more you help the neurons in this region [of the brain] to grow and connect in a way that will benefit the child in the future.”-Dr. John Hutton, pediatrician & clinical researcher, Cincinnati Children's Hospital