BenjAImin

Meet BenjAImin.

He's not your average Year 5 pupil. He's got wires instead of worries, circuits instead of secrets, and he's absolutely brilliant at Maths, Minecraft and making friends the wonderfully complicated way. Fresh from MIT and dropped into a Liverpool primary school, BenjAImin is curious about everything: axolotls, football, feelings and why humans cry during stories about dogs. He longs to be part of a family. He just doesn't quite know how.

Alongside Harry, a boy who doesn't always say much but sees the world in ways others miss, BenjAImin begins one of the most human journeys of all: learning to care, connect and belong. Funny, gentle and full of heart, BenjAImin: The Curious Circuit is a story about friendship, empathy and what it really means to be home.

This book is inspired by the author's wonderful son, Benjamin, whose love for wildlife, animals and people gave life to the metal-hearted hero at the centre of this story. There are echoes of the author's own childhood too: the football boots, the cricket whites and the long cross-country runs where kindness mattered more than medals. Unlike BenjAImin, the author struggled academically but was always hungry to understand feelings, emotions and what made people tick.

BenjAImin's yearning for family draws from another deeply personal place. The author's parents have fostered children for almost two decades, turning their house into a temporary home for so many young people who simply wanted to feel loved and safe. That experience shaped this book's softest moments.

Now an Educational Technology Lead and Computing Teacher in Dubai, the author believes wholeheartedly in the power of AI in education, and also in something far greater: that software still has much to learn from us. AI is here to stay and we have the chance to shape it into something compassionate, creative and profoundly human.

This book is for everyone, whatever your background or beginning. We are all meant for this world. And maybe, just maybe, if we become a little more like BenjAImin... if we take joy in making others happy... we'll leave this place better than we found it.

It starts with all of us. At any age.