Why Alice Kuipers has a fondness for reading and silly wordplay

Alice Kuipers grew up in London England and now calls in Saskatoon home with her partner Yann Martel and their four children.

She is the author of a number of picture books and YA novels, such as Me (and) Me. At a recent Read Saskatoon event, she talked about where her love of reading and wordplay comes from. 

"I read a lot as a child. I was lucky that my mum would take me to the library and we would take out books at least every two weeks. My mum's a big reader. She had a full time job, three children and a busy life — but I do remember on holidays she would curl up with a book and be guffawing away over something. She always knew the meaning of words, so any word that I encountered in a book she would be able to tell me what it meant.

"We would read together. We're both very fast readers and we would race, page by page. We read pretty much everything. She read to me and we read together in these races. It was silly, but it was just for fun. We still talk about books a lot.

"It's been sort of integral to what I'm doing. I have four children and I enjoy their wordplay and silliness when it comes to words... Utter silly wordplay will happen over our breakfast table to the point that it drives me completely berserk because Yann and I are trying to get them out the door to go to school. But they do just revel in that and they love where it can go."

Alice Kuipers's comments have been edited for length and clarity.