Boys often struggle to express themselves, but books can help them process their feelings safely and in their own way. For author FIONA HARRIS, that's the real magic of writing for kids who'd rather be doing anything else.
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The idea for my new middle grade fiction novel, The Rebound, came from a tragic experience in my own life.
A couple of years ago, a dear friend died suddenly, leaving behind her husband and their 14-year-old son. He loved basketball and had been looking forward to trying out for the top team in his division with his best friend.
But he missed the tryouts because he was at the hospital with his mum. And the club wouldn't allow him to try out later.
It was a stunning display of insensitivity.
In The Rebound, my character Harry has lost a parent too. He's a boy who's hurting but not talking, and basketball becomes a way of processing his grief, with the help of his coach and teammates.
I grew up with two younger brothers and saw first-hand how the world expected them to keep their feelings suppressed; to "man up", even when they were going through something awful.
That mentality may have shifted somewhat since the '80s and '90s, along with a long-overdue focus on our kids' mental health in general, but the pressure on boys to tough it out, suck it up and get on with it is still very much baked into our culture. But I believe that kids deserve stories that let them feel everything.
We all know how much of a challenge it can be to get kids to pick up a book these days. To sit down and give a story your full concentration is hard enough for adults (let alone kids) when there's a world of attention-grabbing tech buzzing around them.
As a children's author, it's my job to create characters, stories and worlds that keep kids engaged with the book in their hands. This matters deeply to me because I know how special it is to lose yourself in a good book.
I can still remember the moment I discovered that I could do this thing called "reading". I was about five, sitting on the couch with my mum, reading Raggedy Ann & Andy. She'd read it to me dozens of times, but on this night, I suddenly realised I wasn't just parroting the words from memory. I was reading along with her. It was a life-changing moment.
From that point on there were many texts throughout my childhood that resonated with me and became emotional landmarks.
I still remember sobbing my heart out over Charlotte's Web and feeling a wave of happiness wash over me after finishing Matilda.
Most adults who read regularly had positive experiences with books as kids. There are, of course, plenty of people who are late bloomers when it comes to reading, but lifelong readers can often pinpoint an experience when a book changed their life or cracked something open for them.
And I feel like I have an obligation to offer kids those same experiences and opportunities. Books increase empathy and stretch imagination in ways a screen never can.
When kids read, their own minds do the heavy lifting. They build the world. They cast the characters (well before the screen adaptation). They step into lives and cultures beyond their own.
I think text succeeds with kids when they respond first and foremost to the character, even if that character is nothing like them.
But we need to give kids early success with reading. Kids who struggle from the start aren't doomed to hate books forever, but it does become a battle, and we've stopped normalising reading as recreation.
We don't hand a bored kid a novel and say, "Here, go spend half an hour reading this". Instead, we say "OK, you can have half an hour on your phone".
Another issue is how we model reading for our kids. Do they see their siblings or parents reading? Are we buying them books for Christmas? Are we taking them to the library?
If we don't create a world where books are valued, of course kids won't see reading as interesting.
I had all this in my mind when I started writing The Rebound, because I have friends with young sons who are desperate to get them reading. Most of my kids' books until now have been for girls, so writing for boys was a new challenge.
Sport is where boys can connect, communicate and heal without having to "talk about it", and Harry discovers that being part of a team - rather than trying to be the star - teaches empathy, trust, accountability and belonging.
Not every boy who loves basketball and reads The Rebound will have lost a parent, but I hope they'll still connect with Harry because his emotional world is so real.
We don't give teenagers enough credit for understanding the world, or for wanting to be challenged by it. Boys often struggle to express themselves, but books can help validate their emotions and help them process their feelings safely and in their own way.
That's the real magic of writing for kids who'd rather be doing anything else.
A book doesn't demand eye contact or emotional fluency, and it doesn't rush them or judge them either. It simply offers a space where they can feel something, try on someone else's life, or recognise their own.
If we can give kids stories that meet them where they are and take them somewhere deeper, then we're not just encouraging them to read, we're giving them a language for their inner world.
I wanted The Rebound to not just be a story about basketball, but one that lets kids sit with grief, pressure, friendship, happiness and hope without having to explain themselves to anyone.
And if we can give kids books that achieve that, we're not just building readers, we're building better people.
- Fiona Harris is the author of The Rebound (Allen & Unwin, $17.99).
