🎨 Art, music and story makers · ✍️ Writing help
Imagine Forest
By Imagine Forest (founder Safia Begum). Visit Imagine Forest
Desk research from the maker's own pages. Not yet tried by us. Checked 2026-10-24.
A free creative writing website for children, started in 2015. Kids use a step-by-step story creator, picture book and chapter book makers, daily writing challenges, a short story generator and dozens of name and idea generators (dragon names, book titles, planets). Finished stories can be downloaded as a PDF. The site also has long lists of writing prompts, story starters, how-to guides and reading lists. Most tools work without signing up; an optional account adds a profile and friend codes for sharing books.
Our take: A handy free spark for reluctant young writers if a parent is fine with ads; families who want an ad-free, tracker-free space should look elsewhere.
Checked in a browser
A browser check on 2026-10-25: what loads, the ads and trackers we saw, and what a child meets first. Not a hands-on test.
| Child safety: 2 out of 5 | Programmatic Google ads ran on the home page (2 ad slots), and the story tool invites kids to share stories with friends. |
|---|---|
| Data: 2 out of 5 | Google's ad networks (AdSense and Ad Manager) and the Facebook pixel loaded before the cookie banner was answered. |
| Ease: 3 out of 5 | "Create a story" and "Get started" buttons are clear, but menus, ads and a cookie banner crowd the phone screen. |
| Cost honesty: 5 out of 5 | Free; no upgrade prompts seen. |
What we found
- The first visit contacted 20 third-party hosts on 12 sites and set 14 cookies, including a doubleclick.net cookie.
- 2 ad slots were found, including a Google Ad Manager slot named "home-lessons-ad".
- Facebook's pixel (connect.facebook.net) loaded on this children's writing site.
- A cookie banner says "If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it."
From the test: A free kids' story-writing site, but its home page shows Google ads and loads the Facebook pixel on the first visit.
| Ages it suits | about 6-14 |
|---|---|
| What its terms say about age | Not stated in terms. The terms speak to children directly ("ask a grown-up to read these for you") and set safety rules for members, such as never sharing personal details or friend codes with strangers, but give no minimum age or parent-consent step. (terms) |
| Price | Free. Free; the FAQ says all features are free and there is no option to pay to remove ads (Oct 2026). |
| Works on | Web |
| Account | No account needed |
| Ads | Yes |
| In-app purchases | None |
| The AI in it | A short story generator writes a starter story from a child's choices; the maker says it draws only on a kid-safe dataset and flags bad words. |
What's good
- Most tools work with no account
- Guided story and picture book makers end in a printable PDF
- Friend codes keep shared books among people a child knows
- Large free library of prompts and story starters
Watch for
- Google ads on a kids' site, which the privacy policy says can be personalized and track across sites
- Home page says no personal data is collected, but the privacy policy describes accounts, IP logging and ad cookies
- No age rule or parent consent step in the terms
- Name generators include fan-themed ones (Harry Potter, Warrior Cats) that lead into a sprawling blog
Data and privacy
Accounts take a username, password, optional email and the IP address; inactive members are deleted after 12 months. The site shows Google AdSense ads, and the privacy policy says these use cookies to serve personalized ads that can follow visitors to other sites. No COPPA statement and nothing about AI training. Read the privacy policy.
Does it work?
No independent studies found. The maker's own claims only: it says the tools give children the inspiration they need to start writing.
In the Big Index
Alternatives to Imagine Forest
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Claude
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Curipod
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A sensible choice for classrooms that want more writing with quick feedback and a teacher in the loop; not a home product.
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Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)
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Grammarly
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Useful for teens 13+ who want cleaner writing and will use it as a checker, but parents of kids still learning to write should know how much of the writing it can do for them.
Where these facts come from
- https://www.imagineforest.com/
- https://www.imagineforest.com/privacy
- https://www.imagineforest.com/terms-conditions
- https://www.imagineforest.com/about-us
- https://www.imagineforest.com/story-generator
- https://www.imagineforest.com/online-safety-guide
Prices, terms and features change. Nobody paid to be listed, nothing here is an affiliate link, and Peabody never rates itself. Where we and the maker disagree, the maker's own pages are the ones to trust.