Devin Fan: Hi everyone. My name's Devin, and I'm one of the creators of our book, The Barnabus Project.

Eric Fan: And my name's Eric.

Terry Fan: And my name's Terry.

Devin Fan: The idea for this book started around thirty years ago today, and it was based on a little drawing that I did at the time. It was a drawing of a little creature that was half mouse and half elephant. I originally did the drawing because I was trying to design my own perfect pet and I had always wanted... I always kept all kinds of different pets at home, many unusual ones, but I always wanted a tiny little elephant that I could kind of hold in my hand. So the idea was that create something like that, you'd have to use genetic engineering, and I thought it'd be cool to mix them with a mouse, which would make them really small. So that's where the drawing came from.

Eric first loved the drawing, and we started talking about inventing little stories around this character, and that's where the impetus for the actual story came from, was that original little drawing.

Terry Fan: We just developed the story a little bit more and all just brainstormed ideas together.

Eric Fan: Yeah. So it was a long process of back and forth, all of us doing sketches and designs for the various numerous characters and brainstorming ideas. First we did what's called a rough dummy, which is like a rough version of the entire book once we'd sort of figured out the story and gotten it down to a less unwieldy length, although it was still long for a picture book. Then we have the rough dummy. We used that as like a blueprint for the finished art. Typically we each draw separate elements. Someone will do a background, someone will do characters, and then we'll composite the final illustration in Photoshop by bringing all those elements together.

Devin Fan: And I think the other part of that was just honestly enjoying the process of being creative and being able to send ideas back and forth all the time. I loved that process, and I actually I'm grateful for the technology of text messaging because that made it just so easy to communicate. So even though you're not in the same room, it's almost like you're passing notes and pictures back and forth.

All that Barnabus's creators could see in him was that he wasn't fluffy enough and that his eyes were too small, but what they couldn't necessarily see was that he was brave and compassionate and took care of his friends. I guess my question for the readers would be what qualities do you think are more important of those two?

Eric Fan: I guess one thing that's been exciting for me is seeing various classrooms. I like books that inspire other people's creativity. So one thing that's been exciting is teachers who have taken the idea of getting their students to create their own failed project of their own perfect pet. They post them on Instagram. I just love seeing that amazing creativity. There's books that I read when I was a kid that were a springboard for my imagination, my creativity. So I think that's a valuable purpose for a book, is that you get immersed in it, and it sort of activates your own creativity. That's what I love to see.