'I couldn't find a book about my kid's biggest obsession. So I wrote one'
If you have ever been a parent to a toddler, chances are you've spent some time staring at a construction site, your child transfixed by the action around them. There's no doubt about it: children - especially boys but also girls - love vehicles. Buses, tow-trucks, cement mixers and dump trucks. Anything big and noisy and they are in heaven.
It was the realisation that kids loving trucks was pretty universal that inspired author Stephanie Williams to pen Benny Bintruck, the story of a messy, noisy truck who just wants to be useful.
"The seed for Benny Bintruck was planted when we lived in inner-city Sydney," Stephanie said. "Our terrace house backed onto a skinny lane and each week a huge garbage truck would struggle to navigate the bins and parked cars in the lane. My son Jack would hear the truck coming and race to the back door for us to take him outside."
"One morning Jack just called the truck 'Benny!'," Stephanie said. "Suddenly every garbage truck we saw was met with an excited little pointing hand and shouting 'Benny Bintruck!'
When his obsession was at fever pitch, sometimes we'd even sit at the end of our street watching for trucks, buses, and emergency vehicles."
Stephanie has a few theories for why trucks - and dump trucks in particular - are so popular with kids. "Kids love vehicles for a few reasons," she says, "the show of strength, the noise and it's a bit of mystery... The flashing lights and beeps draw them in, then it’s about their young brains exploring cause and effect - if a big machine does this, then something happens, like the big arm grabs a heavy bin so easily and dumps it in the mysterious cavern at the back."
Benny and the Bin Rats
Stephanie said she looked around for a book about garbage trucks and couldn’t find one she liked, so she and her husband decided to write it themselves.
"We started musing over how the story could unfold and that’s where Benny’s friends, The Bin Rats were added. They’re empathetic and supportive, and spring into action when things don’t go well for Benny - everything we hope our kids might do if their friends were feeling lost. There are a few other characters thrown in too (Ralphie, Daisy, and Sam) because kids love a vehicle!"
Their illustrator Marcus Cutler wove in references to the family's Sydney city life, using photographs of their laneway and house to create the streetscape, "right down to the nasty cockroaches that lurk around the bins," Stephanie said.
After writing the book, Stephanie and the family moved to Hobart and had a second son, Francis. She's working as a writer and editor and says she's looking forward to writing more kids and young adult books in the future, "drawing inspiration from my boys and simple things in life." She says she's well on the way, "my next book is currently rolling around in my head, this time inspired by Francis, so watch this space."
