Why I Created Once

Stories have always been part of our family. For years, my husband has read to our children almost every day, and I loved what often happened after the story ended — the questions, the little conversations, the things our children suddenly wanted to tell us.

When they were little, a story could simply be a story — a little world of magic, imagination, and adventure.

But children grow, and the things they face grow with them. Friendship becomes more complicated. There are fears, mistakes, choices, loss, questions about people and about life. And those little conversations started getting deeper too.

I started wanting something more from the stories we read together.

A book might cover the right theme, but not the particular question my child was facing or the specific aspect I wanted us to explore together.

I didn’t want to give them another lesson from Mom and Dad. I wanted them to watch a character face something, make a choice, and see what happens next — and decide for themselves what to take from it.

Not to give them the answers, but to help them find their own.

But finding the right story — or creating one myself — takes time. And time is exactly what feels so short when you are raising children.

They are growing while we are busy raising them.

That is where Once began.

I wanted to create the stories I was looking for — stories about what matters to a particular child, at this particular moment in their life. And I wanted my children to always know they could talk to us about what matters.