Nookly vs Caribu vs Storyworth: Three Ways to Connect the Generations

It's Sunday, and the video call has started. Your four-year-old holds a sock up to the camera. "This is my sock," she announces. Grandpa, three time zones away, says, "What a lovely sock." There's a pause. Everyone smiles. Someone asks about the weather.

Calls like that are precious, and also a little hard. The love is there; what's missing is something to do together. There are several good ways to fill that gap, and they work very differently. This comparison looks at three: Caribu, Storyworth and Nookly.

TL;DR: who wins where?

• Caribu wins for live, shared activities during video calls, such as reading books and drawing together on the same screen (Caribu).
• Storyworth wins for collecting an adult's life stories through regular prompts, with writing or voice options, and turning them into a printed keepsake book (Storyworth).
• Nookly wins for child-oriented learning experiences created around your family's context, such as a grandparent's recipe, garden or childhood, to use together in person or on the calls you already make.

Three different starting points

One approach starts with the call itself: give both people something to do on the same screen at the same time.

Another starts with the adult's memories: invite a grandparent to tell their life story over time, and gather it into something lasting.

A third starts with the child: take something from the family's life and turn it into an activity a child can learn from and enjoy, which can then be used on a call, at the kitchen table or on the floor with crayons.

These starting points aren't in competition. Plenty of families use one for calls, one for keepsakes and something else for play. What matters is naming the job you want done, so you don't expect a calling app to preserve memories, or a memoir book to entertain a four-year-old on a Sunday afternoon.

Where Caribu fits

Caribu is built around video calls with activities inside them. Families can read books and draw together during a call, so a grandparent far away can share a story or a picture in real time (Caribu). It offers subscription options for ongoing access (Caribu subscription). If the problem is "the call needs something to do," that's exactly the job it does.

It works well for families who already call often and simply want those calls to feel less like an interview and more like play.

Where Storyworth fits

Storyworth focuses on the adult's story. It sends regular prompts that invite someone to write, or record by voice, about their life, then collects the answers into a printed book (Storyworth). If you want a grandparent's memories preserved in their own words, as a family keepsake, that's a thoughtful way to do it.

A garden memory, three ways

Here's one grandmother, one memory and three different jobs.

Grandma grew up with a vegetable garden. She remembers pulling carrots with her own grandmother, counting the rows of beans and the year the rabbits ate everything.

Collecting the memory. If Grandma is answering Storyworth prompts, one week's question might lead her to write about that garden in detail: the smell of the soil, the rabbits, the grandmother she learned from. That story is preserved for the family, in her words, for years to come.

Sharing on the call. On Sunday, using Caribu, she and your five-year-old might read a picture book about gardens together, then draw a carrot side by side on the shared screen. The call has something to hold onto.

A personalized activity. Earlier that week, you asked Nookly: "My five-year-old's grandmother grew up with a vegetable garden and remembers counting bean rows with her own grandmother. Make a plant-counting activity using her garden, a picture card of what she grew, three questions my daughter can ask her on our Sunday call, and a short story inspired by the garden, with the made-up parts clearly marked." Your daughter counts bean rows on paper, colors the carrots and gets her questions ready. On the call, she asks, "How many rows did you have?" Grandma lights up.

Three tools, three jobs: memory collection, a shared call and a child-oriented learning activity. None replaces the others.

What's lovely about this example is that each part feeds the next. The Storyworth answer gives you details for the Nookly activity. The activity gives your daughter a question for the Caribu call. The call gives Grandma a reason to remember something new, perhaps for next week's prompt. You don't need all three to make that loop work; even one small piece can turn a polite hello into a real conversation.

And some weeks, the sock is still the star. That's allowed too.

If you only have time for one thing this month, pick the job that matters most right now. For a family that talks weekly but struggles to fill the calls, a shared activity helps. For a grandparent who wants to leave something behind, collected stories matter. For a child who loves making things, a personal activity gives them something to bring.

What Nookly is and isn't

Nookly isn't a video-calling service, a memoir recorder or a voice-cloning tool. It doesn't capture or reproduce anyone's voice. It creates child-oriented activities, printables, games, songs and stories from the context you choose to share, which you review before using. You bring the call, the visit or the kitchen table.

When a creation mixes a relative's real memory with imagination, keep the difference clear so children know which part really happened. And ask before sharing private memories or photos beyond your family.

You can make one activity on demand for this Sunday, or set a Goal such as "feels connected to family far away," and Nookly creates a finite personalized learning plan, called a Blueprint. Physical books have a role too: a printed keepsake like Storyworth's is a lovely thing to read together, and a Nookly story can sit alongside it on the shelf.

Side by side

On a phone, swipe the table sideways to see every column.

How Caribu, Storyworth and Nookly compare for connecting generations

	Nookly	Caribu	Storyworth
Starting point	The child, and the family context you share	The video call	The adult's life stories
Calling	Not a calling service; creates activities to use on your usual calls	Video calls with shared reading and drawing	Not a calling service
Memory collection	Uses memories you choose to share; doesn't record or collect memoirs	Not its focus	Regular prompts with writing or voice options, collected over time
Child learning personalization	Activities, printables, games and stories built around your family	Shared activities chosen from its library	Not child-focused; centered on the adult storyteller
Physical book role	Creations can be printed; many are made for offline use	Digital books during calls	Printed keepsake book of collected stories

Features can change; check each provider for current details.

Whatever you choose, the goal is the same: turning "What a lovely sock" into "Tell me again." When you're ready, start with one family story.