His best-known works are the film The Pocket-knife (Het Zakmes), the series of books about the toddler Robin,[1] the poem Mensen met koffers (People with Suitcases), the lyrics Hallo wereld (Hello World) and the youth novels Hotel De Grote L (The Big L Hotel) and Bizar (Bizarre).
In 1961, the family moved to Oostvoorne, on the South Holland islands, where one year later, on Kuyper's tenth birthday, his brother Hans was born.
In Oostvoorne, Kuyper, who was thirteen years old, started writing stories inspired by Jules Verne, as well as poetry.
On July 11, 1970, Kuyper met Margje Burger in the Alkmaarder Hout, where he read poetry during the interval of a pop concert.
Kuyper became a board member, editor and organiser of poetry readings on behalf of the publishing company ‘Ontmoet de dichters’ ('Meet the poets').
In 1978, Kuyper wrote his first TV series, De Grote Klok (The Big Clock), with Jacques Vriens, and together with Burger as a photographer, he made reports about the Aran Islands, Brittany and New York for the magazine Bzzlletin.
He and Burger stayed there for four months and met fellow writers such as John Banville, Earl Lovelace and Leonard Nolens.
The first part was called De Boommannetjes (The Little Tree Men) The piece was written by Trudy, the text in prose by Kuyper.
The friendship with Diepstraten would later lead to a youth novel written together, De verborgen steeg (The Hidden Alley) (1986), which was awarded a prize by many children's juries.
Kuyper increasingly focused on puppetry – he wrote pieces for various theatres – and on children's books, which he published initially with In de Knipscheer, later with Bert Bakker, and from 1988 with Leopold.
[5] In 1996, he also published the philosophical children's novel De rode zwaan (The Red Swan),[1] inspired by the forests of Bakkum, which he looked out over from his writing house at the back of the garden.
It was not until later that Kuyper was able to write about the youth of the islands, but in 1998, together with Annemarie van Haeringen, he made the picture book Malmok, about a pelican,[2] which was awarded a Gouden Penseel.
[1] During this period, Burger and Kuyper started writing together, beginning in 2004 with the picture book Jij bent mijn mama niet!
More picture books followed, including Sjim and Sjon eten gek (Jim and John Eat Funny) (2009), Mama Lief Alsjeblieft (For You, Sweet Mama) (2014), Kom uit die boom (Get out of that tree) (2015), and stories from paintings for ‘Het grote Rijksmuseum voorleesboek ('The Big Rijksmuseum Reading Book'), ‘Het meisje met de parel ('The Girl with the Pearl Earring') from the Mauritshuis, ‘Rembrandts voorleesbijbel’ ('Rembrandt's Bible Stories') from the Rembrandthuis and ‘Het grote Rembrandt voorleesboek’ ('The Big Rembrandt Reading Book') from the Rijksmuseum.
He wanted Het boek van Josje (Josie's book), which had not been available for ten years and for which there was still a lot of demand, to be reprinted.
Kuyper reported on it in 'Twee harten op een tafel' (‘Two hearts on a table)’, recorded in Kwaaie verhalen van liefde (Angry stories of love).
Through long conversations with Ròi and his family and friends, Kuyper got to know the soul of Curaçao so well, that he finally found the courage to write a book about the children of the island.
[3] In 2017, Kuyper wrote Aruba's children's book week gift Het spannendste boek van de wereld (The most thrilling book in the world), which was distributed to schoolchildren in a bilingual edition, Papiamento and Dutch, and in 2019, De duik (The Dive) was published in Papiamento and Papiamentu by Charuba publishing house.
In 2014 Mama Lief Alsjeblieft (For You, Dear Mama) was published, which he wrote together with Margje, and Kwaaie verhalen van liefde (Angry Stories on Love) and De vrienden van Sinterklaas (The Friends of Sinterklaas) and Hotel De Grote L (The Big L Hotel) saw the light of day.
Kuyper celebrated his fortieth anniversary as a writer in the Ruïne church in Bergen with speeches and readings by friends and a performance by the Bintangs, and on that occasion, he was appointed Officier in de Orde van Oranje-Nassau.
[3] It started with his first publication, a poem in the Brielse school newspaper, the pacifist Thoughts of an ex-general, followed by NATO Blues, which he sang with friends in the shopping streets of Alkmaar and on TV in the late 1960s, and in MaGier and the MiddelMan (MaVulture and the MiddleMan) (1984) the evil aspects of the faith were denounced.
Kuyper opposed this increase in scale by means of local media and a submission in De Volkskrant, partly because the small and pleasant primary school of his children was in danger of being closed down.
In 1994, he was asked to write a TV series about refugees and the fairy tales they had brought back from their country of birth: De zevenmijlskoffers (The Seven-Mile Suitcases).
Kuyper gave lectures such as Over het nieuwe publiceren en mijn oude schrijversneus (About the new way of publishing and my old writer's nose) (2009), Machiavelli en de Veertig Rooie Ruggen (Machiavelli and the Forty Thousand Euros) (2011) and Terug naar het Paradijs (Return to Paradise) (2015), in which he showed how important youth literature is and how bad it is to fob off its makers.
This got him involved in the national discussion and when his opinion was asked about Het Sinterklaasjournaal and he said in Trouw that it was 'zum kotzen', so racist, that was not appreciated on the social media.
After that, Kuyper's commitment withdrew to his books - see his most recent youth novels De duik and Bizar (The Dive and Bizarre).