Mem Fox – May 28 2017

Amnesty International Day – May 28 2017

A call for everyone, regardless of country, culture or race, to recognise and safeguard the human and civil rights of all.

Mem is a writer of children’s books and an educationalist specialising in literacy. She was made a member of the order of Australia in 1993, holds two honorary doctorates, and was an Associate Professor in Literacy Studies at Flinders University in Adelaide where she taught teachers for 24 years. Mem has written 30 picture books for children and five non-fiction books for adults, including the best-selling Reading Magic, aimed at parents of very young children. Her first book, Possum Magic, is the best selling children’s book ever in Australia, with sales of over three million. And in the USA, Time for Bed and Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge have each sold over a million copies. Born in Melbourne to missionary parents, Mem grew up in Southern Rhodesia and at age 18 moved to England to study drama. She returned to Australia in 1971 and still lives, semi-retired, in Adelaide. Disliking her given name, Merrion, she adopted the shortened form “Mem” at around age 13.

Whoever You Are – Illustrated by Leslie Staub
Harcourt Children’s Books, 2007; ISBN 9780152060305
0-5 years
“Little one, / whoever you are, / wherever you are, / there are little ones / just like you / all over the world.” So begins the Australian author Mem Fox’s joyful picture book Whoever You Are, a celebration of the world’s diverse cultures, both our similarities and differences. Leslie Straub’s innovative, colourful, folk art-style oil paintings of children from all corners of the globe are bordered with photographs of hand-carved, bejewelled frames – and they all reflect Fox’s message that no matter where we come from, within our hearts “Joys are the same, / and love is the same. / Pain is the same, / and blood is the same.” A gem!

Good Night, Sleep Tight – Illustrated by Judy Horacek
Scholastic Australia, 2012; ISBN 9781742832579
4-7 years
“Good Night, Sleep Tight was first published in 1988 [illustrated by Helen Semmler]. It had seven nursery rhymes woven into its structure because I’d heard at a literacy conference in South Africa in the early 90s that children who know six nursery rhymes by heart by the time they’re four are usually in the top reading group by the age of eight. I wanted to make that goal a reality for as many children as possible. I thought seven rhymes was even safer than six!” – Mem Fox