But for the reluc­tant read­er like my son was, I have to get them curi­ous in a book. I remem­ber sit­ting in bed with him and read­ing the first cou­ple of chap­ters to whet his appetite. Once he was hooked like a fish with a yum­my worm, I knew he’d read it on his own to com­ple­tion. This also sends me on a tan­gent. I recent­ly read data this sum­mer that stat­ed many par­ents, espe­cial­ly Gen Z par­ents, aren’t read­ing to their chil­dren. As a teacher, I see the results. There are soooo many ben­e­fits to read­ing to your child, even in their tween years! Make book time, rather than screen time.

Anoth­er tip to hook read­ers, I mean encour­age read­ers, is to give them books in which they see them­selves. My books fea­ture diverse char­ac­ters. I’ve noticed kids pay atten­tion and sit up a lit­tle straighter when they see them­selves in a book. My forth­com­ing pic­ture book, The Princess and the Grain of Rice (Feb. 2026) is a Kore­an retelling of one of my favorite fairy tales, The Princess and the Pea. For one thing, why stick a yucky pea in a sto­ry?! No, real­ly, most fairy tales fea­ture Cau­casian princess­es with blond hair. My daugh­ter nev­er had a princess book with an Asian character.

In my lyri­cal mid­dle grade graph­ic nov­el, The Oth­er Side of Tomor­row, not only are there diverse char­ac­ters, but the plot of escap­ing the North Kore­an regime moves quick­ly, and there isn’t a lot of bor­ing descrip­tions of the set­ting. That helps too. (Note: I used Avi’s book, Crispin, as a men­tor text on writ­ing a nov­el! It worked because my nov­el received five starred reviews!)

So, deep­en your rela­tion­ships, whet their appetite, hook them with an irre­sistible sto­ry in which they see them­selves, and most impor­tant­ly, read TO them!