Hello again!

I’ve had a divine time since I last wrote, visiting schools and teachers and talking to parents in America, Canada and places in my own dearly beloved Australia. I thought I ought to tell you this in case you thought I’d faded out completely. An out-of-date and dusty website is a sad thing so let me dust it off with a few anecdotes…

As I write on a Friday night the house is filled with the heavenly smell of slow cooking, mmmm! I often think that I would be intensely happy if I could just stay at home and play all day long, every day, in my kitchen and in the garden, and never write or travel again. Malcolm says I’d go crazy within a week. He could be right. So could I! We walk daily by the beach (or on it) and I find myself talking increasingly of slowing down , getting more sleep, travelling less and drawing into myself to protect myself from overwork, but it’s all talk. I am now booked up until after April 2006 and next year’s travel schedule is ridiculous so I’ll be taking life a day at a time and letting the future appear as a big surprise every morning: ‘Wow! More work? How unexpected! Yay!’

Last week I met a woman in Australia with three children, the oldest of whom was 13. She had never heard of ‘Possum Magic’ until I read it at the Voices on the Coast festival. Clearly there’s still work to be done. I thought every knew it and was probably sick of it by now. But no…

‘Where Is The Green Sheep?’ is proving to be one of the greatest hits in my list of publications. Having no grandchildren and not knowing many people with young children I am out of touch with ‘live’ children, as it were. So I am constantly amazed by the number of wild responses I receive from parents at workshops, bookshsops and festivals. Children, it appears, are CRAZY about this book and can’t get enough of it. At my exercise class last week one of my fellow exercise-junkies ran past me during our warm-up and said: ‘I’ve got a bone to pick with you!’ I asked him why and he said he’d had to read ‘Where is the Green Sheep?’ to his grandson 30 times in one evening and it had nearly driven him round the bend. Poor man. I often feel sorry for the adults who have to read my books over and over and over and over and over again to the children in their lives when the children get fixated on one in particular.

Last night once again I watched the Windmill Performing Arts Company do their adorable play of the Green Sheep, here in Adelaide, and nearly wept to see the expressions of total wonder of the faces of babies and young children as the sheep appeared from different places, with different music for each one, and with lots of interaction like singing and moon-walking and stretching up and down, etc. Everyone, children and adults, sit in a sheep pen so the little kids may walk around if they choose but they can’t get away. It’s brilliant. It will be touring (sold out already, alas) to Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane in the next few weeks.

My funniest moment in the last couple of months was in Port Pirie in South Australia where I was visiting schools as an ambassdor of the Premier’s Reading Challenge (about which I will say more next time. A ‘premier’ in Australia is like the governor of a state or a province.) I hadn’t been to Port Pirie for many years so the excitment was intense. I was VERY happy to be there and looked forward to the questions after my talk. One little boy looked as if he would burst if I didn’t choose him so I did, and his question was: ‘Where did you get your earrings?’

The best thing about the last two months and two weeks is that I haven’t written, or even tried to write, or wanted to write a children’s picture book. I wondered why I was feeling so cheerful!

On that note, until next time, much love,

Mem Fox xxx