Emirates

Flight Time
Stories

Turning kids’ holiday stories into real children’s books, illustrated by an award-winning duo.

ROLE

Lead Creative

Kids’ imaginations are ignited when they travel. So I came up with an idea to turn that into something they’d treasure forever: their very own book.

I brought Emirates together with award-winning writer and illustrator duo Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre to make it happen. Launched on social media with digital support, we invited parents to send in their kids’ front cover designs for a book inspired by their holidays, complete with their own character and title, for the chance to win a family holiday to Dubai.

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We received thousands of entries. After tough deliberation, Philip and Sarah chose 4-year-old Maddison Penney’s ‘Monkey on a Plane’ as the winner, then turned her cover into a full children’s book, using her character and title as the inspiration for the story and illustrations. It became the perfect flight-time story for other children on Emirates flights.

Maddison's original drawing next to the illustrated book cover
Monkey on a Plane book cover
Monkey on a Plane dedication spread
Monkey on a Plane title spread
Monkey on a Plane story spread
Monkey on a Plane story spread
Monkey on a Plane story spread
Click here to download the story
Emirates Flight Time Stories story library on laptop
Enrico the monkey character development sketches
Flight Time Stories launch event
Flight Time Stories launch event
Flight Time Stories launch event
Flight Time Stories launch event

“Maddison is absolutely besotted to see her ideas with such amazing illustrations. Maddison loves reading stories and has such an amazing imagination, so to see those ideas being turned into such a magical story is a dream come true.”

MADDISON’S MUM