Today I read The Story Factory, by Jam Dong, a 2025 picture book.
This is a book that would be good for kids who are older picture book readers, and/or who are already familiar with telling and retelling stories. It tells about a time when all the stories in the world were made in one place, the Story Factory. Because they’re all made in the same place, the same way, the stories are, well, the same.
Then the machine stops, and the book’s real story starts, first as workers try to fix the story machinery, and then as new stories are made in new ways, creating a pleasing and immense variety.
The story is a metaphor, or rather, a pile of metaphors and symbols, all one atop the other.
It did not move me the way some of the great picture books do, but the colorful and intentionally simple designs of the illustrations were pleasing, and the idea behind the book made me smile and nod.
