Fold a piece of sturdy paper in half. You can use 23cm x 30cm construction paper, or any size of card stock, thin poster paper or scrapbook paper. The paper used must be thicker than ordinary printing paper. Fold the paper in half left and right to make a book cover. Cut 2 parallel horizontal lines in the center of the paper. The 2 cuts are about 5 cm long and 2.5 cm apart to form a hanging tab. Open the paper. Hold the paper upright so that it is taller than it is wide.

Use your fingers or a slender pencil or pen to gently lift the tab. Draw and color the illustration on another piece of construction paper or cardstock. You can also cut out photographs or photos from magazines, or recycle images from old picture books and glue them onto sturdier cardstock. Make sure the picture you draw or use is about the same size as the book. You'll want to prepare not just a single page of illustrations, but all the characters and images needed for the entire book. Leave space for text at the bottom of each page. If you plan to have your child write out the story, use a ruler to draw lines to make it easier for him/her to write. You can also glue a small piece of loose-leaf paper to the blank space. You can leave it blank, or type it on your computer, print it out and paste it onto the page. Make more pages as needed. Fold and cut the paper as above to create the pages you need until the end of the story.