• I’m Shoo Rayner—author, illustrator, and lifelong creative. This site is where I explore the ideas behind my work: storytelling, drawing, illustration, reading, learning—and how we grow creatively, especially as children.

    If you’re a teacher, parent, home educator, or someone who simply cares about how children learn, think, and imagine—this is where I share what I’ve learned over decades of creating for young minds.

    What You’ll Find Here

    • Thoughts on reading, drawing, and creativity
    • Links to my YouTube channels: ShooRaynerStories and DrawStuffRealEasy
    • Updates on my books, projects, and reflections
    • And now— links to my growing digital store for downloadable, safe, ad-free creative resources:

    In a world overwhelmed by screens, social media, and noisy platforms, I wanted to create something calmer and more intentional.

    Every resource is created by me—human-made, teacher-friendly, and built for learning with clarity and purpose.

    Visit the shop at www.shooraynerstoryshop.com

    The Shoo Rayner Story Shop offers downloadable story, video, and drawing packs—designed to work offline, without ads, algorithms, logins, or links. You own the content. You use it when and how you need it.

    This blog will continue to evolve as I do—but it will always be grounded in storytelling, drawing, and the belief that creativity matters.

    If you’d like to stay connected, please subscribe to my newsletter where I share updates, new releases, and thoughts about creative learning.

    Thanks for being here — Shoo

  • My website header says I’m “A real, live, proper, human children’s author.”
    It may seem obvious, but it’s getting harder to be seen in a world increasingly flooded with AI-generated content.

    I recently got an email from a company offering to turn my videos into newsletters for $19 a month. I pointed out that ChatGPT already does that perfectly well. They came back suggesting I join their image creation drive — they upload 15,000 new colouring page images to Pinterest every week!

    You’d think it would be obvious who the human creators are. But it’s not — except when their AI images of Jesus turn up with only one hand…

    Apart from blatant copyright copying, those AI colouring pages lack something vital. But clearly some people don’t mind — they must be selling, or they wouldn’t keep churning them out.

    With so much dross filling the digital space, how can anyone genuine still be found or heard?

    I’ve always felt conflicted online. I create for children — but children don’t have the means to support my work. Books are still a safe, trusted way to share stories, but traditional publishing has become harder and less rewarding.

    Online creation is direct and fun — no waiting years for your book to come out! But the internet has also become more dangerous for kids. Just look at the national conversation sparked by Netflix’s Adolescence. Online influence isn’t always friendly.

    I started building a Patreon for grown-ups teaching children — offering story videos, drawing guides, worksheets and more. But however much I flagged it as for adults, I knew kids would still access it. That made it my responsibility, and I wasn’t comfortable with that.

    Then, it hit me — a blinding revelation: go offline.

    I’m now reworking my Patreon content into downloadable story packs — ebooks, multi-book bundles and curriculum-themed resources you can download, keep, and use offline, forever. The license is simple: use it, enjoy it, just don’t share it outside your home or classroom.

    It’s called the Shoo Rayner Story Shop.

    I’ve got a huge backlist of books I can bring to life again as ebooks and story videos.
    If children want to read on screens — great! I just want them reading. And offline, I’m glad they won’t be interrupted by ads, algorithms or dark distractions.

    Please take a look and let me know what you think: https://shooraynerstoryshop.com

    After years of discomfort about making children’s content online, I think I’ve finally cracked it.


    The answer was so simple.

  • My latest story video has a lot more animation in it as I get to grips with what is possible. Hope you like it!

    Join Dug, Woof, and Mini on a thrilling Bronze Age Adventure, over 3,000 years ago, where wild animals roamed free, and survival depended on skill, bravery, and friendship.

    In this story, Dug is bored, but then he watches Mini creating rock babies and gets an idea – why not create his very own metal man! The first ingredient is wax from honeycomb – and that means collecting some from a nest of angry bees…!

    Be safe – go offline – Get ad-free ebooks, videos and more at www.shooraynerstoryshop.com

    Draw Bronze Age Stuff

    Get the paper Book in the UK https://amzn.to/3QRlbEq

    and in the USA https://amzn.to/3Ya9g8u