I made sure that every comma was in the right place, I made sure that every full stop was in the right place, I made sure that between commas and full stops and capital letters, all the syllables were in the right place. And I think it's partly because I took so long over the writing of it. I think that we were talking about why it took five years to write.Īnd one of the things about Possum Magic, of course, I've had to talk about its genesis and the writing of it over the last 30 years, but one of the things that I keep coming back to when I read it to children is the fact that they are spellbound by the reading. Let's talk about the African dimension to your life. Sorry, Mem, on you go.Īnd so… What were we talking about? I'm sorry, the coughing and the ancient asthmatic has thrown my train of thought. She's just an ageing asthmatic, that's her problem.Īnd we're talking about the 30th anniversary of one of Australia's best-loved picture books, which is Possum Magic, which Mem Fox wrote. This is Book and Arts Daily on RN, and I'm talking to Mem Fox, who's got a frog in her throat. I think one of the very good things… Excuse me, I'm just going to cough. It was rejected nine times over five years, and in between each of those rejections it was rewritten.

Can you explain to me how it took you five years to write a book that's, I don't know, is it 500 words long? You know, it's a beautiful thing, but there's not a lot to it. I mean, in some ways, there's so little of it, if you see what I mean. Lovely book though it is, I can't actually believe it would take you five years.

Now, you say it took five years to write.

Possum magic read