Our Story Begins

Stories Told by the Animals Who Live Them

OUR P.A.L.S. BOOKS — Planet’s Amazing Living Species — began with a simple idea:

What might animals tell us if they could describe their journeys in their own words?

Each book follows one real species as it travels to breed, nest, lay eggs, give birth or raise its young. The habitats, appearance and behaviour are carefully researched, but the animals are more than subjects in a nature lesson. They have personalities, families, memories, worries and hopes for those who will come after them.

The story always comes first.

The Creator

Created & Written by
Gary Bland

Gary Bland is a writer, performer and lifelong storyteller who believes children can understand far more than adults sometimes imagine — provided difficult truths are shared with warmth, honesty and care.

He created OUR P.A.L.S. BOOKS for his family to read to his new grandson, born in 2026, in the hope that one day he will choose to read the stories for himself. Through adventure rather than instruction, Gary wants to bring children closer to the natural world and the remarkable animals with whom we share it.

In these books, the animals speak for themselves. They remember stories passed down by grandparents, worry about changing habitats, laugh with friends and hope that their own young will inherit a safer world.

Each character is given enough personality and emotion for children to love them, while everything that matters about the animal, its species and its extraordinary journey remains true.

Our Guiding Principle

Truthful Stories, Gently Told

Nature can be beautiful, funny, frightening and sometimes difficult.

Some animals eat plants. Some eat other animals. Some eat both. Habitats change, journeys become harder and places remembered by older generations may no longer be safe.

OUR P.A.L.S. BOOKS never presents an animal as wicked simply for surviving as nature intended. Nor do the stories hide real environmental challenges.

Instead, each truth is introduced at the right moment, in language children can understand, with care for every living species involved.

The aim is not fear.

It is curiosity, empathy, courage and hope.

Behind the Pages

From Real Behaviour to Illustrated Adventure

01
02
03
04

Research the species

Find the character’s voice

Build the complete world

Create something to keep

Each book begins with the animal’s genuine habitat, behaviour, family life and essential journey.

The facts become a personal adventure told through the eyes of the animal.

Every volume receives its own landscape, colour palette, wraparound cover, spine, illustrated endpapers, journey map and child-friendly factual material.

The books share one recognisable premium format while allowing every animal and habitat to remain completely individual.