Free conversation guide
We made a free guide to help you talk about it — four questions, a few good ways into each, and no lectures. For the grown-ups raising, teaching, and talking with young people ages 9 to 15.
Free, and in your inbox in a couple of minutes. An occasional note from KireKids after that — leave anytime.
KireKids
Who Am I
This Year?
The four questions underneath growing up
Notice · Grow · Belong · Become
Somewhere around 9 or 10, a young person starts rebuilding their whole sense of self — quietly, and usually without a word about it. They can recap a show in perfect detail and go blank when you ask how their week actually felt. One voice at home, another in the group chat. They're working something out.
You don't need to fix any of it. You just need a way in. That's all this guide is.
Who Am I This Year? is a short, printable guide built around the four questions underneath growing up. It isn't a quiz — no right answers, no scores. Each section gives you a question, a few good ways to ask it, and one small thing to try.
Paying attention to your own days, feelings, and the people around you.
What's hard right now, and the small, unglamorous courage it takes.
Where you fit, and who you are when you're there.
Who you're turning into, and how much of that is yours to shape.
Seven pages. Print it, photocopy it for a classroom, keep it on the fridge. It's yours.
KireKids is a middle-grade imprint with one focus: the work of being 9 to 15 and figuring out who you are. It was started by author Idalin McKenzie out of a simple frustration — too many books for this age tell kids how to feel, and too few trust them to feel their way through it themselves.
Everything KireKids makes — books, journals, and free tools like this one — is built on that trust. No lectures. No tidy lessons.
This guide is the first of several free resources — and your introduction to what KireKids is publishing:
Our flagship middle-grade novel. One family, one ordinary year, and a kid learning to notice the small moments that add up to a person. Coming Fall 2026.
Notice, Grow, Belong, Become — a four-part reflection series for young readers. The four questions in this guide come from these journals.
A story about courage, self-expression, and the day fear shows up looking like it belongs.
Join the list with the guide, and you'll be among the first to know when each one is ready — and the first to receive the next free guide.
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