My Twice-Exceptional Murphy

Murphy was a special dog from the beginning. He was a happy puppy, and incredibly smart. Yet at about the age of five, he began exhibiting pervasive symptoms of anxiety and fear that rapidly took over his life. His story is one of struggle against unknown terrors and of the love and patient care that his dog mom (a.k.a. owner) provided to bring him back to health. It is a tale of love, determination, resilience, and inspiration.

The book is exceptionally emotionally rich, yet it also offers clear explanations of giftedness and twice-exceptionality for people who may be new to those topics. It presents a portrait of what being 2e can look like, but it does so through the figure of a dog. Murphy’s journey was not easy, and his mom’s journey alongside him was at times frustrating and discouraging, but no matter how challenging Murphy’s problems were, one thing never changed: he and his mom loved each other deeply.

Murphy’s story presents parents and other adults with insight into some of the ways in which real people must deal with twice-exceptionality in all its complexities, but it also offers 2e children the chance to see aspects of themselves in the nonthreatening context of an animal story. Among the lessons they will learn is that, no matter how much they may struggle, no matter how exasperated their parents may feel sometimes, they are still beautiful, valuable individuals who can be the light of someone’s life. There is no better lesson than that.