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ABOUT THE AUTHOR, ILLUSTRATOR AND BENNY'S BIRTH The author is a Columbia-trained psychotherapist and lives in New York City. Benny’s story is based on elements of his unpublished non-fiction book exploring the meaning of human value judgments. It is dedicated to his niblings (his nieces and nephews) and anyone who wants to know how to be "truly" special. Benny and friends are drawn by Margaret McDonald who teaches biology, has a masters degree in Nutrition Education and also lives in New York City. The author and illustrator have been friends for years. One day the author noticed a penny when he was walking through Central Park in New York City. That story is told in the author's note on the preview page. Anyway, the author had been working for years on an adult non-fiction book entitled Being Human Revisited. The book explores the true nature of human value judgments: where they come from; How they affect us, etc. The notion of being special is one of those value judgments and he wanted to teach kids where specialness comes from. The illustrator had never worked on a kid's book before but the author remembered seeing her other work and he loved the expressive way she drew characters. They were hanging out one night, the author told her about his idea, she loved it, he asked her to do the illustrations, they sealed the deal with a beer (or perhaps two :-) and a year later here we are. Many of the characters are based on friends and family members of the author. There is a real Lillie, the author's real niece, uncle Jack is named after the author's mother whose name is Jacqueline. Nicky and Benny got their names because Benny and penny and Nicky and nickel just seem to go together, don't you think? |
