Background

Mem Fox was born as Merrion Frances Partridge on March 5, 1946, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She is the daughter of Nancy and Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge who were missionaries. She has two younger sisters, Jan Delacourt (Jan Delacourt Cooper) and Alison Partridge. The family moved to Africa when Fox was six months old.

Education

Mem Fox grew up on Hope Fountain Mission just outside Bulawayo attending mission school and then the all-white primary and secondary schools in Bulawayo. In her first year at the mission school, she was the only white child so all her close friends were Africans. She learned to write by drawing letters on the red earth with her fingers. Later, she graduated to writing squeakily on slates. When the authorities found out that she was at a black school they told her parents it was against the law for her to be there, so she was taken away and sent to a white school, where she was extremely miserable and friendless for over a year. She spoke English with an Africa accent and was teased so much she used to sit in the toilets and sob. She was at white schools from that time onwards.

During Fox's high school years, her mother encouraged her to take up public speaking, for which she's very thankful. The years 1965-1968 were spent in London studying drama at Rose Bruford College. She spent three happy years changing her Rhodesian accent, speaking Shakespeare, singing Beatles’ songs, wearing miniskirts, and dyeing her hair. At drama school, she met her husband Malcolm Fox. In her early thirty, she began studying children’s literature at Flinders University and later became a Bachelor of Arts degree. During her studies at the university, she wrote the first draft of her first book Possum Magic, as an assignment.

Career

Mem Fox published her first book Possum Magic in 1983 and it is still in publication today. It is considered a classic of recent Australian children’s literature. Since Possum Magic she had written many more books for children including Guess What? (1988), Time for Bed (1993), Whoever You Are (1997), and The Magic Hat (2002), Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes (2008), Ducks Away! (2016). She has also written non-fiction books for adults including Thereby Hangs a Tale; How to Teach Drama to Infants Without Really Crying (Teaching Drama to Young Children); Radical reflections: Passionate Opinions on Teaching, Learning, and Living; and Reading Magic: How Your Child Can Learn to Read Before School - and Other Read-aloud Miracles.

She is the author of two autobiographies Mem's the Word (Dear Mem Fox) and Memories: an autobiography. The title of her autobiography, in the United States edition, is "Dear Mem Fox, I have read all your books even the pathetic ones" which was a quote from a child’s letter.

In addition to her writing career, Mem Fox was an Associate Professor of Literacy Studies in the School of Education at Flinders University, South Australia. She retired in 1996. She taught there with great satisfaction and happiness, full time, for 24 years. She has also traveled a great deal as an international literacy consultant to places as diverse as Bahrain, East Timor, Guam, Hong Kong, Oman, Tanzania, China, and of course to the United States, which she has visited over 110 times. She has spoken at hundreds and hundreds of conventions in the States.

Fox now spends most of her time writing presentations urging parents, teachers, and others to read aloud to children aged between 0-5, and she travels the world doing it. She is continuing writing children's books. Her recent work is The Tiny Star (2019) and Roly Poly (2019).

Achievements

• Mem Fox has received many honors and awards from the Australian government and other organizations for services to literature, as well as three honorary doctorates for her work in literacy. Among her awards are the 1994 Alice Award, 1991 Advance Award, 1990 Dromkeen Medal, NSW Premier's Literary Award, COOL Award, Nan Chauncy Award.
  
  Her books have been translated into 19 languages as well as braille. Around half her picture books have become bestsellers. Her first book, Possum Magic, has sold over four million copies and is still the best selling children's book in Australia, more than thirty-five years after its publication.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Hello Baby!

    (After meeting a bevy of baby animals - including a clever...)

    2009
  • Baby Bedtime

    (Join these adorable elephants for a lyrical good night ro...)

    2013
  • Good Night, Sleep Tight

    (In this sweet story that's just perfect for bedtime readi...)

    2012
  • Hattie and the Fox

    (Hattie the Hen spots something in the bushes, but none of...)

    1986
  • Radical Reflections: Passionate Opinions on Teaching, Learning, and Living

    (The internationally acclaimed children’s book writer and ...)

    1993
  • Koala Lou

    (When Koala Lou’s mother becomes so busy that she forgets ...)

    1988
  • Reading Magic: How Your Child Can Learn to Read Before School - and Other Read-aloud Miracles

    (All parents want and expect their children to learn to re...)

    2001
  • Feathers and Fools

    (Long ago and far away, in a rambling garden beside a clea...)

    1989
  • Two Little Monkeys

    (Can two clever monkeys outwit a hungry creature who’s on ...)

    2012
  • Guess What?

    (Through a series of yes-or-no questions, the personality ...)

    1988
  • Mem's the Word

    (Mem’s the Word is the candid and compelling autobiography...)

    1990
  • Whoever You Are

    (Every day all over the world, children are laughing and c...)

    1998
  • Night Noises

    (As elderly Lily Laceby dozes by the fire, her dog, Butch ...)

    1989
  • Tough Boris

    (Boris von der Borch is a mean, greedy old pirate - tough ...)

    1994
  • Time for Bed

    (Darkness is falling everywhere and little ones are gettin...)

    1993
  • The Magic Hat

    (One fine day, from out of town - and without any warning ...)

    2002
  • Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes

    (As everyone knows, nothing is sweeter than tiny baby fing...)

    2008
  • The Tiny Star

    (Once upon a time, although this happens all the time, a t...)

    2019
  • Ducks Away!

    (Count along with Mother Duck as her ducklings try to wadd...)

    2016
  • Wombat Divine

    (Wombat loves everything about Christmas - especially the ...)

    1996
  • Let's Count Goats!

    (I can see the airport goats and I can see their cases. Bu...)

    2010
  • Roly Poly

    (Roly Poly the polar bear loves being an only child. His b...)

    2019
  • Sleepy Bears

    (Winter is here, and in winter, bears sleep. But how do yo...)

    1999
  • Harriet, You'll Drive Me Wild!

    (Harriet doesn't mean to be pesky. Sometimes she just is. ...)

    2000

Views

Quotations: "Literacy has become the great focus of my life - it’s my passion, my battle, my mission, and my exhaustion."

"My main role right now is being a devoted grandmother."

"Writing is my second love. My first is teaching."

"I continue to write picture books when the spirit moves me, so if you’re still reading this, and if you like my books, and keep buying them, I promise to continue to write picture books for children even though it’s the hardest job in the world and much more of a grind that most people realize."

"Books don't harm kids; they arm them."

"Writing a picture book is like writing 'War and Peace' in Haiku."

"If every parent understood the huge educational benefits and intense happiness brought about by reading aloud to their children, and if every parent and every adult caring for a child read aloud three stories a day to the children in their lives, we would probably wipe out illiteracy in one generation."

Personality

Mem Fox disliked her given name and adopted the shortened form "Mem" at around the age of thirteen.

Mem Fox writes on a computer, an iPad and a smartphone, but she still uses a pencil and paper whenever she has a writing problem to solve. Her brain loves it when she writes in a pencil.

Interests

• traveling

Connections

In 1969 Mem Fox married Malcolm Fox. The marriage produced one child, Chloe.

Father:

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge

Mother:

Nancy Partridge

Sister:

Jan Delacourt

Sister:

Alison Partridge

Daughter:

Chloe Fox

Chloe Fox is an Australian politician. She was a journalist for seven years, first in Adelaide and then in Paris; then she became a high school teacher of French and English at Loreto, a Catholic girls’ school in Adelaide; represented the South Australian House of Assembly seat of Bright from 2006 to 2014 for the Labor Party. In September 2014 she was appointed to the Lifetime Support Authority. In January 2015 she was employed as a French teacher at Brighton Secondary School. As of 2018, she has been a French teacher at Mitcham Girls High School.

husband:

Malcolm Fox