Custom Story Books.

Broadly, for children under about three — and the reason is that at that age a book is a physical object before it is a story.

Infant and toddler books get chewed, thrown, stood on, bent backwards and dropped in food. That is normal use, not misuse. Paper pages tear on the first attempt and a paper book is destroyed within days.

Board book construction uses thick laminated board for every page. The result is effectively indestructible: pages are too thick for small fingers to tear, they survive being bent, and they wipe clean.

Two related requirements at this age:

• Rounded corners. A sharp board corner at toddler eye height is a genuine hazard. Rounding costs almost nothing.
• Ink and laminate safety. Infants mouth books — normal behaviour — so materials need to be appropriate for that, specified explicitly rather than assumed.

Above about three, paper pages with a laminated cover are fine, and the priorities shift to illustration reproduction and page count.