A story to read together
- Ages 5–10
- Free to read
- No sign-up
“Mommy, what is AI?”
If your kid has asked you this, you know the feeling. Our cousin in Singapore got it from her eight-year-old, Vea. She brought it to us, because building AI is what we do all day.
So we answered it in the least efficient way imaginable, and wrote her a whole book.
Introducing…
Think Like Trixie
Vea's Great AI Adventure
Vea has one hour until her mom's birthday party and no card written. Then her AI robot Trixie shuts down mid-sentence. So she shrinks herself down and dives into her best friend's head to find out how Trixie thinks, and how to switch her back on.
She asked the question, so we made her the hero of the answer. That's her on the cover.
The whole story, with sound effects and pencil drawings that move as you read.
We're keeping the digital edition free. Our kids are going to grow up inside this technology, and we would rather they understood it than were impressed by it.
— John & Nana, who wrote it for Vea
Inside
What is in Book 1
Word Explorer boxes
The AI vocabulary, defined in language a five-year-old keeps.
Sidebars with activities
Vea's Discovery Notes, and a Be an AI Detective page to fill in.
Character insights
Vea the inventor, her robot best friend Trixie, and Modelle, the AI brain inside Trixie's head.
Real-world connections
Where these ideas are already living in your house. The speaker in the kitchen, the app that knows a face, the game whose characters answer back.
Who it is for
- Families who love reading together
- Parents with curious kids
- Educators teaching students aged 5–10
- School curriculums introducing AI concepts
- Tech-savvy cool aunties and uncles
- Anyone curious to learn AI concepts
- No technology background needed
The words
Every idea, in the book’s own words
AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI is a computer that learns by looking at lots and lots of examples. It can spot patterns and help solve problems, but it still needs you to tell it what matters!
From Vea’s AI Discovery Dictionary
The story
Preview the story in 3D
Scroll, and the book opens on five scenes from Book 1. Then read the whole story free online, where every pencil drawing comes to life as you turn the page, with sound effects you can switch on.
01 · THE WORKSHOP
One hour until the party
The second shot soars. Vea spins round to celebrate, crashes straight into her wobbly invention shelf, and a basketball drops onto Trixie's head.
CLANG!
Mom's birthday party starts in an hour, and the last thing Vea asked Trixie for was help with “the perfect card”.
02 · SIGNAL LOST
Then she stops, mid-sentence
Vea grabs the DiveLink, a watch she built for a day exactly like this and has never dared use. Its cable plugs into Trixie, and it can take Vea inside her friend's head to find out what's wrong.
Gulp.
The screen lights up: SELECT SIZE: TRIXIE. DESTINATION: THE WORD GARDEN. In a whoosh of neon, the workshop is gone.
The Word Garden is Trixie's mind from the inside: glowing paths running everywhere, tiny pixel helpers called Trixels carrying words about, and a ball of golden light named Modelle, who knows almost every word in the world.
The bonk shook Trixie's words loose, Modelle tells her, and nobody down here can tell which ones Vea wanted. Knowing words is easy. Knowing which ones you want is the hard part.
03 · THE WORD GARDEN
Nobody knew what she meant
Three of them hold up what they made. One card is so polite it's boring. One makes jokes about getting old. One could be about anybody's mother. They are all fine. None of them is hers.
A better question is the fix, and a seven-year-old can practise that at the kitchen table long before they have a login anywhere.
The clock is still running, and there is still no card.
04 · THE MISSING PIECE
The one thing she couldn't look up
It's the afternoon she mixed kaya, a sweet coconut jam, into peanut butter, and Mom laughed instead of getting mad. Modelle has all the words, and none of them is that memory. It's Vea's to tell, and she tells it.
In seconds the helpers stack up a card: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO A MOM WHO LOVES PEANUT BUTTER! It sounds certain, and Vea catches that it's wrong: Mom doesn't love peanut butter. She loves Vea's beautifully weird experiments.
The ask
“Help me write the perfect card”
What Trixie’s helpers carry, bigger means heavier means it matters more
- help
- me
- write
- the
- perfect
- card
What comes back
Happy Birthday, Mom!
Not wrong, just not hers. Nothing in the ask says a word about Mom.
The card is finished. Trixie is still switched off.
05 · SYSTEM RESTART
Now get her back
This time Vea knows exactly which words she wants. Her fingers fly across the glowing controls: TRIXIE, WAKE UP! WE HAVE A CARD TO DELIVER!
BEEP!BOOP!BING!
SYSTEM REVIVAL IN PROGRESS! Vea zooms back to her workshop like somebody shot out of a friendly cannon.
Blink.
System restart complete
Trixie’s eyes flicker, blink, blink, then glow bright, and she asks whether they finished the birthday card, as though nothing had happened at all.
She has no idea where Vea has been, and that's the joke. The card took Modelle's words and Vea's memory, and neither of them could have written it alone.
What her mom did when she read this is the part we are not going to tell you.
To Hazel and Vea — for the curious minds that sparked Trixie.
Happy Birthday Mom!
Remember when I put kaya in the
peanut butter and you laughed
instead of getting mad?
That one. That’s my favourite one.
love Vea xx
From the sketchbook
Every page starts in pencil
Questions
What parents ask
What age is Think Like Trixie for?
Ages 5 to 10. It's written to be read together, so younger kids can follow along as you read, and older kids can read it on their own when they're ready.
What will my child learn from Think Like Trixie?
How AI works, told through the story. Inside Trixie's head, the word MOM is a heavy block and THE and AND float right past, because an AI learns which words usually matter most. Modelle, Trixie's AI brain, knows almost every word in the world but not the one memory Vea needs, and when the first card gets Mom wrong, it's Vea who catches it. That's why AI works best with people. Every idea also gets a plain definition in Vea's AI Discovery Dictionary at the back of the book.
Do I need to know anything about AI to read it with my child?
Nothing at all. The book explains every idea right where it comes up, in words a five-year-old can follow, so you'll learn it at the same moment your kid does. A note for grown-ups at the end gives you four things to talk about afterwards: ask clearly, check the answer, think before you share, and remember that AI isn't a person.
Does the book teach children to use AI tools?
It teaches the thinking behind them, with no app to download and no account to make. The big lesson is asking a clear question: when Vea asks for “the perfect card”, she gets three that are all fine and none of them hers. A kid can practise that at the kitchen table long before they have a login anywhere.
Why is Think Like Trixie free?
Because the kids reading it will grow up using AI every day, and we want them to understand how it works. For them, using AI will be like driving a car is for us, and you wouldn't hand a teenager the keys without teaching them to drive first. So the digital edition is free, and it always will be. We'll sell the printed edition once it's illustrated.
When can I buy a printed copy of Think Like Trixie?
Once the illustrations are finished. We don't have a date yet, but you can read the whole story free today. Leave your email at the end of the feedback survey and we'll let you know when the printed edition is ready.
What does reading the book online collect?
Only counts that can't be tied to anyone: how long each page is on screen, whether a reading reaches the end, and whether the sound is on. The online book never loads Google Analytics or shows a cookie banner, sets no cookie and gives no ID. Our privacy policy lists everything it counts.
How do I read it today?
Press “Read Book 1 free” at the top of this page. The whole of Book 1 opens free in your browser, one page at a time, with nothing to sign up for. Every pencil drawing moves as you read, and the sound effects stay off until you switch them on. It remembers your page, so you can stop and carry on later. When you're done, “Give feedback” takes you to the survey. Every question is optional and most take one tap. One of them asks what you'd like the next books to explore.
Support us
Book 1 is free to read, and it'll stay that way. Book 2 is where you come in.
We want learning about AI to be fun for every kid, and that takes more than one book. The easiest ways to help are free: tell us what your kid thought (opens in a new tab), and send this page to a parent or a teacher who’d like it. You can also follow along on Instagram at @thinkliketrixie (opens in a new tab).
The printed one
When the illustrations are finished, you'll be able to buy the printed edition, and every copy sold helps pay for Book 2.
- A signed Founders Copy of the first edition, addressed to whoever you choose.
- Future manuscripts, illustrations and character designs, before they're published.
- Your ideas, sent straight to the authors and the illustrator.
Plz help share our story!!!
Bookshop, school or library?
Reading lists, classroom sets, or anything else you’d like to ask. Nana co-wrote the book, and she replies to everything herself.