Story art that grows with your child

Here's something most of us only learn when we have a baby: newborns can't really see a watercolour. At birth, vision is dominated by the eye's rod cells — colour perception only starts maturing around three to six months — so those soft, dreamy pastel illustrations we love are, to a newborn, mostly a gentle blur. What they can see, and will stare at with astonishing focus, is bold black-and-white.

So from tonight, Dreamtime's story illustrations are tuned to your child's age.

The right art for the eyes reading it — well, looking at it

• Under 1 — bold, high-contrast black-and-white pictures, in the tradition of the classic newborn board books. Thick outlines, one big friendly shape per page, nothing fussy. It's what a newborn's eyes can genuinely latch onto.
• Toddlers — big, simple shapes in bright, saturated primary colours, with the cut-paper boldness of the board books they're starting to grab and hold.
• Preschoolers — bright collage, gouache, and watercolour — expressive characters and one clear thing happening per scene.
• Older children — richer, more atmospheric storybook art, with the detail and mood their eyes (and imaginations) are ready for.

Each night's story keeps one consistent style across all of its pictures, so the whole book feels like it came from one illustrator — the style is simply chosen from the palette that suits your child's age.

New: sound-play stories for babies under one

Alongside the new art, there's a new story shape for the youngest listeners — very short, rhythmic stories, about eight one-line pages, built almost entirely for the sound of a parent's voice rather than for plot. Hushes, repeats, soft rhymes — the kind of thing a newborn responds to long before they can follow a story.

And yes — a picture on every page

While we were at it, we made sure every single page of the storybook reader carries its own illustration, right where the words are. No more swiping past stretches of plain text between pictures.

How to get it

There's nothing to turn on. Tonight's story simply arrives with art chosen for your child's age — and if you have a baby under one, their next story will be one of the new sound-play stories automatically.

Sweet dreams.