'The kids, they've got all their stories, and then I can be like, 'Hey, how do I do this?' or 'Can you make this in here?' and then have them go and try to duplicate what I want to have happen in the books,' Rob says. In addition to coming up with fun plot points they think other kids would want to read, Benny and Reagan are the first readers of each new installment in The Accidental Minecraft Family, acting as quality control for the schemes Rob dreams up. And it's funny, because we get emails and messages daily, and kids all the time say, 'You guys act just like my parents would if we went into the game!'' 'And I'm very anti-violence and like, 'Everyone needs to be kind,' and into barbecue and dad jokes. 'Benny loves ninjas and weapons and fighting and stuff, and Reagan, when she plays Minecraft, she's making farms and doing horse stuff,' Kristin says. The series is now up to 34 installments, with a new book releasing each month. 'We put them on Amazon and, I mean, it didn't even take that long - they went wild,' Kristin says. Their first three chapter books, aimed for kids ages 8-12, were published that fall under their collective pen name, Pixel Ate. With inspiration from these play sessions, the Billiaus named their new series The Accidental Minecraft Family. And immediately they became obsessed, and we were writing the books months later.' 'But in Minecraft you can invite people, so when we learned that, and school immediately got shut down, that was when we finally let them because it was actually where they could still play with their friends and interact. 'We've always been very cautious about any online games,' Kristin adds. 'So we were like, well, if we can play together that's a way to connect.' 'We started playing at the very beginning of COVID, because one of my best friends had told me a lot about it, and I really wanted to play it,' Reagan says. The Billiau's two eldest children, 13-year-old Reagan and now 11-year-old Benny, had always wanted to play Minecraft together, too, so the family teamed up to start exploring the blocky world filled with explosive Creepers, adorable animal companions, and deep, dark, ore-filled mines. 'So let's sit down and write a book that you would want to read.'

'We were like, we're not just going to watch shows all day, let's do something together,' Kristin recalls. He'd always enjoyed writing, though, and even self-published a sci-fi trilogy for adults some years before. It was spring 2020, the start of the pandemic, and Rob had just lost his job working in restaurant sales. Benny Billiau is the reason the family's Minecraft tales took off.

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