Stories for children, families and young readers, by Korinna Leányvári.
Every book holds three stories: one rhyming story to look at together, then two Touch-Along stories for bedtime. You read aloud while one hand plays the story on your child: their face becomes Pillow Land, their back becomes the Night Zoo. Every story slows down page by page until your hand rests still.
A tiny Dream Keeper, born from your child's own fingerprint, walks through the Dream Door, down Slide Mountain and past the Sleeping Lakes. A story to look at together, then two Touch-Along stories: one for the night after a wild day, one for the night when a head is full.
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Tiny ants tiptoe, an elephant tries very hard to tiptoe, and a long, long snake draws an S all the way down. A story to look at together, then two Touch-Along stories: a joyful parade for a full-of-beans evening, and a rainy-night story about friends who simply stay.
Buy on AmazonFingertales is a read-aloud bedtime series for grown-ups and children aged 2 to 7. You read the story aloud while one hand gently plays it: a soft tap, a slow glide, a warm circle. Simple maps show where each touch goes, and every page is a little slower than the one before, so the story winds down together with your child.
Snuggle up and read the story aloud. Before the first story, your child presses a fingertip on the naming page to create and name their very own Dream Keeper.
Follow the numbers on the little map. Every touch is soft, one-handed and never tickly, so the other hand can hold the book. Always ask "May I?" first.
The last pages slow down until your hand rests still. One Touch-Along is enough for tonight. If your child pulls away, simply read the story without touch.
Find the hidden friends of Dream Land together, in a gentle rhyming story.
Your fingertip walks the story: tap, glide and rest, page by page.
Slow, warm strokes and a story where everyone is safe and sound.
Start with the look-together story, eyes open, and meet the friends of Dream Land, like Wink the star, Zip the firefly, Peek the snail, Nell the owl and Bo the elephant. At the end, your child picks a flag: the red-flag ant leads to Touch-Along Story 1, and the blue-flag ant leads to Touch-Along Story 2. Book 1 plays its stories on the face. Book 2 plays them on the back, a good choice for children who prefer a back rub.
“I made this up for my first son, who could not fall asleep. Thirty-three years later, all three of my sons still remember it.”
Korinna Leányvári is a Hungarian-born author and the mother of three sons. Her first book was published in Hungary.
More than thirty years ago, her first son could not fall asleep. So she invented a new kind of bedtime story: she read it aloud while her fingertip gently played the story on his face. She raised all three sons with this ritual, and all three still remember it.
Fingertales is how she passes it on. Her Touch-Along Bedtime Stories are about calm, closeness and the bond between a parent and a child. Ember & Oak Books is her own imprint and the home for all of her stories: picture books now, family stories next, and later, books for teens and young adults.
Korinna has loved books for as long as she can remember, and she started writing for school newspapers as a girl. In high school her short stories mostly stayed in a drawer, until her mother, without telling her, entered some of them in a literary competition. She won.
The prize was a free journalism course. Her stories began appearing in newspapers, she volunteered at the local city radio station, and she kept writing about people, emotions and the strange turns life can take. At 23 she held her first printed book in her hands: Bizarrságok, a collection of short stories published in Budapest, Hungary.
Then life took her to the United States, where she raised her three sons. Now that her children have grown, she is returning to the stories that have been waiting for her.
I have loved books for as long as I can remember. As a child, I read voraciously, losing myself in the stories others had written. Before long, I discovered that I wanted to put my own stories on paper, too.
I started writing for school newspapers when I was young. Later, during my high school years, I wrote more and more, but mostly for myself. My short stories ended up tucked away in a drawer. I simply loved writing, and it never occurred to me that one day other people might read my work.
Then my mother did something that would change my life. Without telling me, she entered some of my writing in a literary competition. To my complete astonishment, I won.
The prize was another surprise: a chance to attend a journalism course free of charge. My stories began appearing in newspapers, and local papers interviewed me. Little by little, a new world opened up to me.
While I was still in school, I also became involved with our local city radio station, working there voluntarily in my spare time. I did it not for money, but because I loved a world where I could tell stories, meet people, and share ideas.
And all the while, I kept writing about people, emotions, unexpected moments, and the strange turns life can take.
Those stories eventually became Bizarrságok, my first collection of short stories, published by a publishing house in Budapest, Hungary. I was just 23 when I held my own printed book in my hands for the first time.
Over the years, life took me in new directions. I moved to the United States, raised my three sons, worked, and adapted to a completely different pace of life. There was less time to write. Stories and ideas continued to grow in my mind, but many of them never quite made it onto the page.
Now, as my children have grown older, I finally have more time to return to something that has always been a part of me. I can give those thoughts and stories the attention they have been waiting for.
Looking back at Bizarrságok after thirty years, I still remember how proud I was of it. Its pages hold the thoughts, feelings, and reflections of a young woman in her late teens and early twenties, her understanding of life, and glimpses of her own personal story. Some pieces are deeply emotional; others are humorous. Some explore difficult questions, tragedy, or drama.
At that age, I had not yet found a single style I could call my own. I loved so many kinds of writing, and it felt wonderful to experiment with all of them.
Today, I would certainly write this book differently. But I would not change a single thing about it, because that was who I was then. And that is exactly what makes it so precious to me now.
That is why Bizarrságok is more than just my first collection of short stories. It is a reminder of a young woman's search for her own path, and of a mother who believed in her before she believed in herself.
An ember is small and quiet, but it becomes the spark that starts a fire. Every one of our books begins that way: with one small spark.
The oak is the tree no storm can break. It bends, it loses leaves, it carries scars, and it still stands. Strength does not belong only to the strongest. Sometimes it grows from a fall.
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