This is my son Mark:

Mark was born in 2021 and is a pretty normal baby. If Mark is anything like his parents, he’ll love books. We decided a great present for him would be a set of books on every birthday (The list of books is at the end of this post). This would give him a tradition to look forward to and a steady supply of things to read. Here’s what we did:

1. Created an age defined list of books for Mark
2. Locked each age set of books into a case
3. Placed a cover on each case

Each birthday Mark will get a key to open the case assigned to his year. Pictures will help:

For the cases we got Master Lock 7148D File Boxes. It was surprisingly hard to find small safes that hold books. Most searches result in safes that are hidden in books. I guess nobody steals books?

Next we printed out pages for 5-16 and decorated them:

A scan of each one is below:

We put all the books inside the cases.

And every birthday, he’ll get a key to open a case:

The Book List

Title	Author	Age
Where the Wild Things Are	Maurice Sendak	5
Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site	Sherri Duskey Rinker	5
If you Give a Mouse a Cookie	Laura Numeroff	5
The Lorax	Dr Seuss	6
Oh, The Places You’ll Go!	Dr Seuss	6
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish	Dr Seuss	6
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi	Rudyard Kipling	7
Where the Sidewalk Ends	Shel Silverstein	7
The Year of the Dog	Grace Lin	7
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe	CS Lewis	8
Prince Caspian	CS Lewis	8
Voyage of the Dawn Treader	CS Lewis	8
Robinson Crusoe	Daniel Defoe	8
Redwall	Brian Jacques	8
Treasure Island	Robert Louis Stevenson	9
The Hobbit	J R R Tolkien	9
Enders Game	Orson Scott Card	9
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea	Jules Verne	9
War of the Worlds	HG Wells	10
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes	Bill Watterson	10
Andromeda Strain	Michael Crichton	11
Lord of the Rings – Fellowship of the Ring	J R R Tolkien	11
Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers	J R R Tolkien	11
Lord of the Rings – Return of the King	J R R Tolkien	11
The Giver	Lois Lowry	11
Jurassic Park	Michael Crichton	12
Sphere	Michael Crichton	12
Starship Troopers	Robert Heinlein	12
Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae	Steven Pressfield	12
Congo	Michael Crichton	13
Lost World	Michael Crichton	13
The Hunt for Red October	Tom Clancy	13
The Complete Far Side Collection	Gary Larson	14
Moneyball	Michael Lewis	14
Cryptonomicron	Neal Stephenson	14
The Martian	Andy Weir	15
300	Frank Miller	15
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking	Malcolm Gladwell	15
The Big Short	Michael Lewis	15
Red Storm Rising	Tom Clancy	16
Dune	Frank Herbert	16
Watchmen	Alan Moore	16
The Hot Zone	Richard Preston	16