Use Gemini's new Storybook Gem to help study law
Back in the 1990s, I used to tell my three year old the facts of Erie Railroad v. Tompkins as a bedtime story. "Along came a train ..." We dealt on the need for caution near railroad tracks more than the choice of law and the tenth amendment issues that pervaded my Civil Procedure class, but still it was kind of a way for a new professor to refresh on facts and share a passion for the law. For better or worse, in 2025, the process of generating stories from legal cases can be automated. And in a way that may help law students as much as prior methods may have entertained toddlers.
Announcing the new Google Storybook "Gem" for Google Gemini. You give it the basic facts and it creates a 10-page illustrated children's story for the desired age group. (Details here.) Here's a sample simple prompt.
Write a story about Pierson v. Post for 10 year olds who aspire to be lawyers. The story should be illustrated in the style of 19th century engravings.
And here is the result. Notice that the link can be shared and that, if you were so inclined, the book can be read aloud by the AI in a choice of voices. You can share the book with your fellow students (or friends with unusual tastes). Imagine a story book club for con law!
You can adjust the targeted age of the audience. Here's a version intended for 16 year olds (who presumably appreciate the Latinate prose of the original opinion)
And you can adjust the illustration style. Here's an account of Katzenbach v. McClung in which Gemini was told that "Illustrations should look like 1960s advertisements."
You can likewise tell Gemini to adopt a particular perspective. Here's a story for eight year olds recounting The Slaughterhouse Cases in which the AI is told to suggest that limiting the Privileges and Immunities clause to mean almost nothing is going to cause problems down the road. The result is remarkably clever.
And you can feed it material (including other stories) to guide its work. Here, I gave it my CLE presentation on Trump v. CASA and asked it to write a story for ten year olds who might fear that their forthcoming sibling would now be deported.
Also, it doesn't have to be about cases. Here's one I particularly like on the UCC Battle of the Forms.
Will this new feature revolutionize the study of law? Probably not. Are there some cases or doctrines less suited to children's book format? Gemini will take risks but the brutal tale of Buck v. Bell (shown below) might be an example.
Despite these limitations, Google Storybook mode makes learning law more fun. And that's actually important. I have always felt that any way that gets students to actually engage with the law and become active learners is a good thing. Google's new storybook mode available at least to Pro subscribers shows yet another way in which AI can help.
Note
Here's the AI-generated version of Erie Railroad v. Tompkins. I will see what my now-grown child thinks.
