Storytailor®is a Kansas City studio turning story time into a hands on adventure for families everywhere. Founded in 2022 by award winning children’s author and illustrator JQ Sirls and product builder Herston Fails, the company builds live stories that wrap around each child like a custom fitted cape. One moment a reader is laughing with a surfing hippo. The next they are piloting a pancake rocket toward a new language or a brave medical milestone. Every tale grows from a single goal. Spark joy and strengthen bonds.
“Kids deserve stories that feel written just for them,” Sirls says. “When that happens the room gets brighter and children feel seen.”
Sirls and Fails draw on deep creative roots and carefully trained, child safe technology to spin each story in real time. Parents share a few sparks about their child. Storytailor responds with an adventure that can be read aloud, acted out, or even spoken to like a friendly guide. The child steps inside the narrative, chatting with characters and shaping the plot instead of staring passively at a screen.
Child therapists and child life specialists praise the gentle way Storytailor folds feelings into the fun. The team borrows from bibliotherapy, giving children language for big emotions while they rescue galaxies or bake impossible cupcakes. Teachers use the stories to open conversations about kindness, resilience, and belonging. Hospitals lean on them to cheer patients facing tough treatments.
Inclusivity sits at the heart of every page. Heroes come in every shade, shape, and ability. A wheelchair never limits a quest. A mixed race princess heads the royal guard. A neurodivergent pirate maps the stars with color coded jokes. These characters never feel like lessons. They feel like friends.
The roadmap pushes the envelope of playful immersion. Upcoming features place the child directly in the scene through voice and augmented reality. Off screen kits will send families on scavenger hunts, sidewalk chalk quests, and bedtime reflection games. Each idea follows one rule. Create moments of togetherness, not more screen time.
Storytailor’s growth has been organic and swift. More than thirteen thousand adventures have already launched, many requested by teachers, librarians, and hospital staff who found the tool through word of mouth. Investors have noticed, yet Sirls measures success in shared laughter, not funding rounds.
“Watching a parent and child build a story together is like watching a campfire catch,” Fails says. “It starts small. Then it lights up every face in the room.”
From bedtime to breakfast, from first day of school jitters to inner child healing for adults, Storytailor meets families where imagination lives. It trades passive content for active play and turns the simple act of reading into a memory that sticks. Most readers walk away with the same thought, “My child will LOVE this!”
