The Story Behind Our Stories

It started with a toddler who wouldn't sit down.

Bathtime in our house had become a nightly negotiation—me kneeling on the bathmat, him standing up for the fourth time, both of us ready for the day to be over. One night, we tried a standard bath book, hoping to buy some seated calm.

It worked, but only for a moment. The book was over before it even really began, and there simply wasn't enough to read.

When I looked at what was out there, most bath books had just a few scattered words, and many had no words at all. I went searching for longer ones, but they just didn't exist.

It struck me as a huge missed opportunity. Bathtime happens every single night. For many parents, it is one of the few guaranteed moments we get with our kids each day, and one of the only times they are truly captive. Bathtime can be a really special window of time for connection, and reading together is the perfect way to lean into those moments. Bringing a story into the water builds on that, turning the tub into a gentle, calming start to the bedtime routine.

If the books made for the tub weren't actually going to help us read together, I decided to write them myself.

And, so, I did write them myself, and Bathies was born. The three books take place at the Walla-Walla-Wando watering hole (because kids love to say silly and generally made-up words). The adventures flow seamlessly together as the characters—Beatrice the baboon, Harriet the hornbill, and Leona the leopard—each need a bath for a different reason. And, each one learns something valuable along the way.

The stories average 250 words, not the handful that's in most bath books. And that difference is the entire point: long enough to actually read together, and to have the kind of connection that makes a routine feel special.

Deciding to write them was the easy part. Everything after took years—between three kids, three moves, and learning how to safely manufacture something that has to be made and safety tested as both a book and a toy.

But the writing itself felt like coming home. I come from a family of writers (my aunt even ghostwrote for The Boxcar Children), and a deep respect for stories has always been there. I knew I was writing for two people at once: creating something a child asks for again, and something a parent doesn't mind reading again.

I also knew the stakes. The research is clear: the sheer number of words a child hears is the single most important metric for their brain development. Amidst the overwhelming swirl of modern parenting advice, reading to our kids is one thing that truly matters.

As someone who has spent my career in tech, I am deeply drawn to that simplicity. In an industry on a fast track to shift everything to AI, there is something profoundly refreshing about the fact that children will always take baths, and physical books will always be one of the best things we can put in their hands. It is beautifully, stubbornly analog.

There is something deeply gratifying in these enduring truths. And playing a small part in them feels like work worth doing.

— Mallory Berlin, Founder