When Mark Cunich’s first child was born, he became a stay-at-home dad with aspirations of telling imaginative bedtime stories. He quickly discovered, however, that exhaustion and creativity don’t always go particularly well together. By the end of the day, finding another character, adventure or vaguely interesting plot could feel impossible. So he began creating Story Sparks, a simple way to make bedtime storytelling easier, more imaginative and more fun.

As a child, Mark had struggled with reading himself, and storytime could sometimes feel more like a battle than something to look forward to. He wanted Story Sparks to take away some of that pressure and create a space where reading ability didn’t matter. Instead, adults and children could simply enjoy stories together, contributing ideas, being silly and discovering where their shared imagination might take them.

Since the release of the original Story Sparks, Mark has visited schools across Australia and told more than 100 stories with children of different ages. Along the way, he has learnt an enormous amount from the unexpected ideas, questions and directions children bring to a story. Just as importantly, nightly storytelling has remained part of his own family routine. As his son has grown older, Mark has watched him progress from listening and offering suggestions to developing characters, solving problems and increasingly taking control of the story himself.

That progression became the inspiration for Story Sparks for Young Storytellers. Drawing on years of storytelling with his son, his experiences in schools, and feedback from parents, educators and psychologists, Mark developed the second book to help children make that same transition from participating in a story to beginning to lead one of their own.

Before becoming an author, Mark worked as an accountant, a profession that didn’t offer many opportunities to exercise his imagination. Creating Story Sparks helped him rediscover a creativity he wasn’t sure he had, while also revealing just how creative children can be when they are given the opportunity.

Today, bedtime storytelling remains a treasured part of his family’s routine, and the two Story Sparks books reflect the journey Mark and his son have taken together.