The Number Nibblers have been a lifetime labor of love since I first created them for my wife's Math bulletin board back in the 1970's. Sandy taught deaf education at the elementary level back then so I knew I had to come up with something very visual. I wound up cutting out primitive characters and attaching them to the numbers on the bulletin board. The kids would not let her take it down for the entire school year. To this day I still have most of the rudimentary construction paper cutouts that I created.
Several years later, I created a story in verse to showcase them and the ideas for their names and specific diets came to me. Alas, my drawing abilities have always been severely limited. So, over the years, as I refined my story, I occasionally looked for someone who could take what I could see in my mind and get it down on paper. However, working 2 jobs a lot of the time and trying to help out my wife raising 5 children, the Number Nibblers project was mostly just a background dream.
When I retired from full-time work a couple of years ago, the story got a new lease on life. Through one of my sons, I met a young woman named Jody who possesses wonderful artistic ability. She was able to take the child-like drawings I'd done of my Nibblers, and using the mind's eye view I had of their appearances, sketch the images that appear in the book.
So here they are, live and in color. I believe that children of all ages will love the characters I have created here. The idea of this first book has always been to introduce the Number Nibblers. Then in further books, they'll have individual and collective adventures...and the day that ENNI leaves his cave will remain in the forefront of coming attractions. Parents, I invite you to introduce your children to the land of Digitazia and the colorful and quirky Number Nibblers.
