The Tapper Twins is For Kids Who Love Books…and Kids Who Don’t

I created the Tapper Twins  series because I wanted to reach kids who’d rather do almost anything than read—the ones who will only pick up a book if you’ve taken away their iPods, hidden the TV remote, disabled the mouse on the family computer, and threatened to withhold access to all of the above until they’ve read for at least half an hour.
In other words, my kids.
If you’re wondering whether I—as both an avid reader and a writer whose livelihood depends on children reading my books in numbers large enough to allow me to buy food—consider my own sons’ lack of interest in reading to be some kind of existential parenting failure, the answer is yes. I have no idea what went wrong there. But it hurts. And on so many different levels. Have you ever felt the dismay of having your kid reject a book that you loved when you were his age? Imagine how much worse it feels if you not only loved the book, but wrote it. And then dedicated it to him.

That’s what happened with my first middle grade series, The Chronicles of Egg—which, incidentally, is fantastic, and I still believe will one day be embraced by large numbers of age-appropriate readers. Even if none of them happen to live in my apartment.
So when I sat down to write a new series, I was determined, both as a parent and a royalty-dependent author (see above, under “food”), to create something that even kids as indifferent to the written word as my sons would enjoy. And not just enjoy, but actively seek out.
This was a tall order. But I’d spent a lot of time studying their habits, so I had a pretty good idea of what my kids wanted in a book.
It had to be contemporary.
It had to be funny.
It could impart a moral lesson, but only as long as it was funny enough that they didn’t notice.
It had to appeal equally to boys and girls. (To be honest, my sons didn’t care about this one. But I did, because I figured I should hedge my bets.)
And finally, even if it had the story structure of a novel, it couldn’t LOOK like a novel. Pages-long stretches of uninterrupted text leave my kids paralyzed with fear. Or maybe it’s boredom. It’s hard to tell the difference with them.
Either way, I needed to come up with a format that rendered the text in bite-sized chunks, interspersed with pictures.
Lots of pictures. Lots and lots of pictures.
That’s how the Tapper twins—12-year-old Claudia and Reese, who live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and don’t get along very well—were born. That’s why their stories (there will be at least four books, and hopefully more) are told as oral histories, assembled by Claudia from her interviews with Reese, their various friends, and the occasional adult.
And that’s why the books are heavily illustrated with Claudia’s doodles, photos that she takes on her smartphone, and screenshots of her and Reese’s favorite video games and social networking sites.
All of these elements found their way into the series for the sole purpose of tricking my kids into reading something I’d written. And it worked. My middle son, the toughest sell of all three when it comes to books, read The Tapper Twins Go To War (With Each Other) in one sitting. When he finished, he had just one question:
“When can I read the next one?”
I think your kids will like The Tapper Twins, too—even if you’re fortunate enough to have one who likes to read. I have a friend whose 12-year-old daughter inhales several books a week. I gave her The Tapper Twins, and she loved it. After she read it, she told her dad, “I don’t usually like that kind of book.”
“What kind of book is that?” he asked her.
“You know—books for kids who hate books.”
She’s on to me. But that’s fine. Because she liked it, too! So, mission accomplished.
The Tapper Twins Go To War (With Each Other) is available at B&N bookstores today!