The world of books for children and young adults was nothing like it is now, but I was deeply grateful for authors who were opening doors I would later travel through as a writer. Books like Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Beezus and Ramona, The Tesseract, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, and many others laid a foundation. Quickly, I exhausted the books directed toward my age group. Dick and Jane drove me bananas and I hankered for books that would satisfy my curiosity. I worked my way through my mum’s bookshelves, disappearing into Clan of the Cave Bear and then everything by Penelope Lively, who I barely understood, but who I loved.

As you’re probably gathering, I’m an indiscriminate reader (you picked that up when I mentioned Sweet ValleyHigh, right?). My bedside table now has a pile of eclectic books upon it, ranging from current shortlisted books for major prizes, to the latest Saskatchewan publications, to outstanding young adult, like Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley, which I’ll come back to. I have books about writing, like Story Genius by Lisa Cron or How to Tell a Story compiled by The Moth (my favourite podcast), and then magazines (The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Writer’s Digest), a crime  novel (I adore Tana French), and kids’ book series I’m reading with my children: The School for Good and Evil, Archie Comics, and The Bolds, alongside a selection of graphic novels by David A. Robertson. I read cereal packets, shampoo bottles, and everything I can on creating online content because I co-founded and now help run a non-profit website called OneSmallStep.com, which makes it easy for people in Saskatoon to discover the work of local charities by having them all in one place for free.

READING LIKE A WRITER

In a world with AI-generated text available to all of us as writers if we choose to use it, the art of reading becomes even more important. Knowing how you want words to sound, knowing what works for you, helps you hone a text as you craft. The more you read, the more you’ll hone that inner ear.

Interestingly, the first thing I do to get myself into a writing frame of mind is read. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, “I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.” This matches with my writing life: as I read, ideas spark. To me, every book is a teacher. Each and every book—even the terrible ones—can teach you something about writing: how to do it, how not to do it, how someone else has done it, how you could do it.

When you’re reading like a writer, you are both enjoying the book you’re reading and you’re thinking about it as a teacher itself. It’s a mindset to get into that has helped me through the years to become a better writer overall (I think!). When I’m reading, I notice what I love. I highlight sentences that I admire, reading them over carefully and letting them swell in my mouth. I notice, too, what I don’t like. The moments I get lost or bored help me pay attention to the types of stories I want to write. Above all, I tune in to the books that pull me to them. Which books do you love? What do you select at the bookstore?

As you read, explicitly thinking as a writer, I want you to try these two steps:

1. Try to push yourself outside of your comfort zone.
Challenge yourself to read books you wouldn’t normally pick up. Read picture books and YA novels, read self-help and poetry. Try science fiction (please pick up a book by N.K. Jemisin), try grim realism, try it all. The reason for this is that a lot of us get stuck in a bit of a reading rut in our lives. But this book aims to help you become the writer you want to be. To do that, I want you to become a little more playful and open to possibility. A great way to do this is to read outside of what you have mainly read up until now, no matter how far along the writing journey you are. You can always put down a book you don’t love once you’ve tried it out. When I started reading lots of chapter books, I realized how much I loved them: sparks flew to me from those books that I then wanted to emulate in my own writing. I want this experience for you.

2. Pay attention to the books you love most. 
Once you’ve expanded your reading options, you can fully notice what you most enjoy as a reader. I find a huge correlation between this and what you most want to write. If you’re pulled over and over to picture books, then likely that’s the type of book you want to write next. This works both ways—if you’re trying to write something that you don’t love to read, you could ask yourself why. I love crime fiction, and have won an award for writing crime fiction, but it’s taken me years to recognize that I perhaps want to write more of it. I spent weeks over the summer reading everything by Tana French and saw that I was interested as a writer in understanding the psychological impact of a crime on people around the victim. In my YA novel, The Death of Us, which I wrote years ago, I followed this passion, and in the novel I’m writing now, I find myself fizzing with excitement when I think about the mystery and murder aspects of the story.

Saskatoon-based Alice Kuipers has published 14 books for young readers, including 40 Things I Want to Tell You and the Polly Diamond series. Her work has been published in 36 countries, and she works as a writing coach for The Novelry.

Alice Kuipers (Emma Love)

Excerpted from: Spark: Alice Kuipers on Writing for Kids & Young Adults by Alice Kuipers. Copyright © 2024 Alice Kuipers. Published by University of Regina Press. Reproduced by arrangements with the publisher. All rights reserved.

Spark: Alice Kuipers on Writing for Kids & Young Adults, part of the Writers on Writing series, published on Oct. 22.