Interview with Kirsten Boie

Kirsten Boie is one of Germany’s most renowned and prolific children’s authors, with a remarkable bibliography spanning over 130 books. Her deep contributions to literature were celebrated in 2007 when she received the prestigious German Children’s Literature Special Award for her life's work.

However, her dedication and influence extend far beyond the printed page. Kirsten is an important advocate for global literacy, dedicating her time and passion to promoting the joy of reading both across Germany and internationally, most notably in Eswatini.

In recognition of her decades-long work, it was announced at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair that Kirsten Boie was named one of the winners of the 2026 IBBY-iRead Outstanding Reading Promoter Award. This international accolade recognizes her a lifetime devotion to reading promotion.

Before finding her calling as an author, Kirsten spent over a decade working as a schoolteacher. It was during these years that she witnessed firsthand how complex learning to read truly is for a child—a challenge many adults take for granted. Seeing so many children struggle to achieve full literacy ignited her enduring commitment to reading promotion.

Today, her advocacy spans grassroots initiatives and national policy. Kirsten is involved in a wide range of programs. For example Buchstart Hamburg nurtures literacy skills from an early age by giving young children reading packs for free. Kirsten also lends her influential voice as the patron for numerous reading festivals, including The Island Reads and Lüneburg Reads. In 2018, Kirsten launched the petition "Every Child Needs to Learn to Read," which swiftly garnered over 100,000 signatures, leveraging more systemic investment in children's literacy from the government and other public sectors.

Kirsten’s work in Eswatini is also very touching. Eswatini used to be a country with the highest HIV rate. When Kirsten visited Eswatini for the first time, it was a real shock. She could hardly see adults in the street. This made her more determined to do something for this country. Kirsten’s philanthropic endeavors in Eswatini try to improve the lives of the local people from different aspects and education was one of them. Upon realizing that children's literature did not exist in the local language of SiSwati, she took it upon herself to fund, create, and distribute the country's very first bilingual books.

Ultimately, Kirsten Boie’s dual roles as an author and reading promoter reinforce one another, creating a powerful, lasting impact on the lives of children worldwide.

iRead: What were you doing when you found out about the news that you won the IBBY-iRead Outstanding Reading Promoter Award?

Kirsten: This is the third time that I have been nominated for this award. There are so many excellent candidates for it, and I always thought I would never get it. This time, I suddenly got a phone call saying, “Congratulations, you've won the prize.” It was such a surprise, and I was so glad. I don't know why I got it—there are so many other excellent reading promoters out there. I would never have believed this could happen.

iRead: I think all the jury members were very touched by the great work you’ve done for such a long time.

Kirsten: Thank you. I did have a lot of time, didn't I? I've been writing for 40 years now. A lot of things can change in forty years, and you learn a lot during that time.

iRead: You are a renowned children’s book author in Germany. When did you start your career as a writer?

Kirsten: So many things in life just happen by chance. Forty years ago, my husband and I adopted a boy. We were both teachers, and we thought we could both keep working after the adoption. But then the government said the wife must stay at home and look after the child. Luckily, it's not like that anymore today.

With me not working, we only had half the money we had before. So I thought, what could I do secretly? My answer was that I would try to write a book, because I thought they couldn’t check all the books published in Germany.

I only wrote three chapters at first because I thought the publishers wouldn’t accept it since it was just my first attempt. But after three chapters, two publishers said “yes”. I was really lucky. So I started to write secretly. That's how I came to writing, and I didn't know a thing about it. I just learned by doing.

iRead: How old were you when you wrote those three chapters?

Kirsten: I was 33.

iRead: What did you write about?

Kirsten: I had just adopted a child, so I wrote about adopting a child. Apparently, there weren't many books about that topic because there weren’t many people who had experienced it. So I was lucky.

iRead: Have you always liked to write since you were little?

Kirsten: I liked to write when I was a child. But then, when you study German at university, you study Literature. You look at texts very carefully, and then you say to yourself, "No, I could never ever do that." And so I stopped writing. At least, that’s what I did.

iRead: Where do you normally get your inspiration?

Kirsten: Because I started writing forty years ago, I still have a way of writing that's not possible anymore for a lot of younger writers. Today, they have to go to the publisher and discuss their writing ideas to see if the publisher would be interested in publishing them. It wasn't like that at the time when I started. So I still write what I like, and it varies.

iRead: When you were a German teacher, did you see any challenges for children learning to read?

Kirsten: I started my teaching career at a grammar school, which means it was a really good school for the best students. And that was really easy. Then I switched to a comprehensive school with children from all over the place. I thought I'd like to work with other kinds of children as well, not just with the top ones. And when I was teaching in the comprehensive school, sometimes it was really difficult. In a way, I had to learn how to teach all over again. But funnily enough, I also liked it there.

iRead: You have been writing and doing reading promotion work for decades. What changes have you seen in children’s reading in Germany?

Kirsten: Over the past thirty years or so, the country has changed a lot. In Hamburg, we now have 31% of children coming from other countries. These children aren't used to German, and some of their parents see school as a place that should teach the children everything, whereas we really expect parents to help at home as well. A lot of these kids have problems learning how to read.

Compared to when I started writing, nowadays children have a lot more alternatives to reading. There are so many things that people can do on the Internet; reading seems to be less and less important for children. I’m not against technology, but it can pose a big challenge for children learning how to read. I think it’s the same all around the world.

iRead: How did you first start doing work to promote reading?

Kirsten: In Germany, if you write for children, you usually read your books to children in schools as well. It must be thirty years ago now, I went to a school and read to the children. The children were about twelve years old, and I brought a Harry Potter book with me as it was just becoming well known. I asked them to read the title, but surprisingly, it was a real problem for them to read it. In comprehensive schools, you find many children who can't read properly. That’s when I slowly began to do campaigns.

Over the years, I’ve become involved in a number of meaningful programs and campaigns. Buchstart Hamburg aims to nurture children’s literacy skills development from an early age. All one-year-olds in Hamburg get free book packs. Later on, we also introduced Buchstart Hamburg 4 1/2. All four-year-olds are given an illustrated reader. There are also assessments to see if extra support is needed to ensure that they will have a good start in primary school two years later.

Very frequently, we adults don't really know how difficult it is for children to read and how many children there are who can't read. With all these programs launched in Germany, we are trying to raise awareness. Now many other federal states are taking similar approaches as well.

iRead: For many people outside of Germany, there is an impression that Germany has a long tradition of reading, and children are doing very well academically. But I’ve read from the nomination materials that Germany is also facing a lot of challenges.

Kirsten: You are right. 18.9% of 10-year-olds in Germany were identified as functionally illiterate by the 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). According to PIRLS, Germany dropped from 5th to 21st place since 2001 and is slightly below the EU and OECD average.

In response to the alarming results of that international study, I initiated the petition “Every child needs to learn to read” (Jedes Kind muss lesen lernen) in 2018. Together with the German Publishers and Booksellers Association (Börsenverein des deutschen Buchhandels) and the German PEN Center, I called upon the Federal Ministry of Education and Research to invest in literacy and reading promotion. The petition was launched on the online platform Change.org, and very soon we had more than 100,000 signatures. It shows that I’m not alone here; a lot of other people want to work together to address this challenge.

iRead: I know that other than in Germany, your reading efforts reach other parts of the world as well, notably Eswatini. What first brought your attention to Eswatini?

Kirsten: As I said at the beginning, often things start without a plan. This was the same. In 2007, I received the German Children’s Literature Special Award. The prize money was quite large, and I was thinking about what to do with it. I didn't want to keep it, but I didn't really know where to give it. Then I read an article in the newspaper about this country called Eswatini that had the highest rate of HIV. That meant many of the children didn’t have parents anymore. So I thought it would be sensible to give my money to this country. Then, a short time afterwards, I decided I should see the country myself first. It was a real shock. At that time, you hardly saw adults in the streets, only children. Then I knew it was right to go and help this country.

At first, I joined an organization and donated my money. Then after a while, I founded my own organization, the Möwenweg Foundation. In 104 care centers, known as Neighborhood Carepoints (NCPs), over 3,000 children receive daily meals, preschool education, and medical care. More than 500 women volunteer to care for the children. A full-time team of 15 local staff members provides the necessary coordination. I go to Eswatini twice a year.

Now I’m really worried because USAID has stopped its work in Eswatini. They were doing a lot of very important work in the country. We are afraid that the HIV rate will go up again because people won’t get their medicine for free anymore.

iRead: So your work in Eswatini is not just about reading. You are doing all sorts of things to help people in Eswatini.

Kirsten: Yes, that’s right. The project related to reading is called Book Crazy. At some point, I realized that in Eswatini, there wasn't a single picture book, children's book, or young adult book in the national language, SiSwati. Therefore, in 2014, we had a small bilingual picture book (English-SiSwati) printed for all the Neighborhood Carepoints. In 2016, two comprehensive picture book collections containing a lot of stories for different age groups in SiSwati were added, which have since been regularly reprinted and distributed to the NCPs.

We also offered training for the people working at the NCPs, so they could learn what to do with the books. When those adults were growing up, there were no books either. So reading books with the children is a completely new thing for them.

iRead: It must be challenging for a German person to do work in Eswatini, a country so far away and so different. How did you find local people to work with?

Kirsten: The local people who work for us as coordinators are the ones who have been to university. We also have the local women from the villages working directly in the NCPs.

There are so many more things that we’d like to do. For instance, nobody wears glasses there, even people who are short-sighted. I really want to do something to help them in this aspect, because I think a simple pair of glasses can make a huge difference in their lives.

iRead: You knew Eswatini had the highest HIV rate. At first, did you feel scared going to the country?

Kirsten: I didn’t. I knew how the virus is transmitted and that you don't just catch it casually. When I came to the country for the first time, I saw huge posters set up by foreign organizations all over the country warning people about it. I think by now, people are really well informed.

iRead: Do you still write a lot now?

Kirsten: Not as much. You know, I’ve been writing for over forty years and have published more than 100 books. Because of that, I now get many letters and emails from readers every day. And usually, they contain questions. I spend a lot of time replying to them. I think at this moment, it’s more important for me to answer those letters than to write another book. I’ve written so many books; the world can survive without another one.

iRead: Do you reply to all the letters?

Kirsten: Yes. I think all questions deserve an answer.

Find out more about Kirsten Boie and her work at https://www.kirsten-boie.de/