A month of football, fathers and a trip to Parliament 

June has been a big one. There was a World Cup to keep up with, a Father's Day to celebrate, and an afternoon in Parliament that gave us a lot to think about. Here's what's been happening, and a few things you and your little one might want to get stuck into.

The World Cup, one story at a time

Staying up for every match is not really an option when there's a four-year-old who's up at six. So we did something about it.

Every night, while you sleep, we add a match report and the stats for every single World Cup game into Tandem. By morning your child can turn last night's match into their own personalised book, read it together over breakfast, and head off to school knowing exactly who won and how. Big fans who are a bit too little to stay up all night, sorted.

It has been one of our favourite things to build. Real football, real history, told at your child's level.

Make a World Cup book together >

Want the story behind it? We wrote about how the World Cup books came together on the blog, read it here:

Tandem went to the House of Commons

Rob was invited to Parliament to talk about new research on AI in the early years, work he advised on with the team at Cambridge University.

The room was a mix of MPs, investors, charities and people who build technology for young children. The research looked at the conversational AI toys already on the shelves, the ones designed to make friends with your kids, and found something simple and worrying: we don't yet have good evidence about whether they help, harm, or sit somewhere in between.

That gap matters to us. Academic research moves slowly. The technology moves fast. And if you're trying to build carefully, with proper testing, real guardrails and privacy built in from the start, that takes longer than rushing something out the door. The hopeful part was the room itself. Everyone there agreed early years should be treated differently, and that we should be making it easier for companies building responsibly and much harder for anyone being reckless with our children's data and attention. 

Rob came away feeling clearer than ever about why Tandem exists. You can read his full reflection on LinkedIn.

What you've been telling us

We read every message, and this one from a long-time Tandem family made our week:

"We've been loving all the new changes made to Tandem: the story books, the fact books, the quality of the stories, and even the link to the World Cup. Really great stuff! My five-year-old tends to love the factbooks more than anything else."

Thank you. Notes like this are the reason we keep going. If something's working for you, or if it isn't, we always want to hear it.

Father's Day, in your words

Father's Day has been and gone, but the books you made stuck with us.

One of our favourite moments came from a little one who, after making a book about their dad's job, announced: "I had no idea what Daddy actually did in his office. Now I know he mostly plays on computers!" That's the whole point. A story you build together becomes a way to understand each other a little better.

To everyone who made a book for the dad in their life, thank you for letting us be part of it.

That's June. Thank you for reading with your little ones, and for trusting us with your evenings, your breakfasts, and the occasional World Cup result.

Until next month, 

Rob and the Tandem team

Start your next story >