Your child can make a code for a book they made and give it to somebody who is not on TaleTykes, such as a grandparent. Whoever has the code can read that whole book in a browser, without an account.
This is a different thing from the shared library, and the difference matters. The library shows a book to other children on TaleTykes, and a person on our staff reads every book before that happens. A code shows one book to one person your family chose, and nobody on our staff reads it first.
How your child makes one
When they finish one of their own books, they are offered "Send this story to someone". Pressing it shows a code of eight characters, such as K7MP-4XQ2, and a square that a phone camera can read.
Nothing is sent anywhere by itself. We never ask your child for an email address or a telephone number, and there is nowhere for them to type one. They show the screen to whoever is in the room, or read the eight characters out over a call. The other person goes to taletykes.com/story and types them in, or points a camera at the square.
Your child can have five codes working at once. Making a sixth means stopping one first.
What the other person sees
The whole book: every page, its pictures and its words.
A book usually carries the name your family chose for its hero, which in most houses is your child's own first name, and it may carry a drawing your child made. Whoever opens the code sees both. It does not show their age, their reading level, how much they have read, or anything else about them, and there is nothing on the page that leads anywhere else about your child.
The person reading does not need an account, and we do not ask them for one. The first three books that anybody shares with them are free to read. From the fourth, the page asks them to start their own TaleTykes instead of showing the book.
How long a code lasts
Thirty days, and then it stops working on its own. You can stop one at any time before that, and so can your child.
Stopping one, or switching it off
On Readers, choose your child and open Safety. The card called "Sending a book to someone" lists every code they have made, says whether each one still works and how many times it has been opened, and has a "Take it down" button beside each.
The switch at the top of that card turns the whole thing off for that reader. It is on unless you turn it off.
Your child can stop their own codes too, from "My books". Either way the code stops working at once, and so does the address behind it.
What we keep
The code itself is not stored anywhere. We keep a scrambled version of it, which is enough to recognise the right one when somebody types it in and not enough to reconstruct it, which is why a code can never be shown to you or to your child a second time.
We keep nothing at all about the person who opens it. No name, no address, nothing about their browser. The only thing recorded is how many times the code was opened, which is the number on your safety page.
When a code runs out, the record of it is deleted.
If something about a book worries you, you can tell us.