Possum Magic

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Alternatively, if you're studying possums (without the magic), then don't worry: we've got you covered. Say hello to this Possum Fact File, which makes a great handout to help your students with their studies, or a charming poster for your wall. It would go great with a few homemade possums! Grandma Poss uses bush magic to make a child possum (Hush) invisible so that Hush won’t be eaten by snakes. (I’m going to put aside the fact that snakes seem to ‘see’ via vibrations, so an invisibility superpower wouldn’t necessarily protect her…) But soon, Hush longs to be able to see herself again, the two possums make their way across Australia to find the ‘magic food’ (quintessentially Australian food) that will make Hush visible once more. Each year on Hush’s birthday they eat the same food ‘just to make sure Hush doesn’t turn visible again’, thereby creating a kind of mythology about why (white) Australians eat certain foods as celebration.

I chose possums as the main characters for this book because we had possums on our roof and the babies were adorable. I didn’t include Canberra, the national capital, because it wasn’t a state capital. I chose the casino in Hobart because it was famous at the time for being new and for being the first legal casino in Australia. I chose pumpkin scones in Brisbane (for those of you reading this outside Australia, Brisbane is the capital of the state of Queensland) because at that time the wife of the premier of Queensland was Flo Bjelke-Petersen, nationally famous for her pumpkin scones, which was an in-joke for the parents who read the book to their children. The other foods were chosen for their alliterative qualities and because they were typically Australian. Eliza Berlage (2018). "Australia in Three Books". Meanjin. Melbourne University Publishing. 77 (4): 15–17. ISSN 0025-6293 . Retrieved 2 September 2021. Jeanette Larson. "Possum Magic". School Library Journal. Media Source Inc . Retrieved 2 September 2021. A perfect choice for storytimes, but also useful for curriculum enrichment, thanks to a simplified map and glossary. Oh, for heaven’sake,’ I thought. ‘How easy!’ I felt that the assignment was beneath me. How wrong I was. No wonder the lecturer had set the task—we all discovered how difficult it was to write for young children and our estimation of children’s authors rose sky high. It was a lesson well taught, and well learnt. In Fox’s story the consumption of certain foods constitutes Hush as an individual. The various foods might be said to carry certain discourses or stories about what it means to be Australian, including lifestyle, attitudes, desires, and even power relations (who gets the biggest slice?). As Hush consumes these foods, she also consumes Australian-ness and is constituted as an Australian. As a visibly legitimate Australian subject Hush embodies culture or as Foucault puts it, she is an “effect of power.” Simultaneously she is also “the element of its articulation.” Hence by her annually repeated consumption of proper Australian food/culture she confirms, for all those (child readers) now able to see her, just what it means to be Australian.Julie Vivas is a master of watercolour. A lot of picturebooks have been illustrated with watercolour used as a kind of textured fill, but the watercolour line in this book is delicate and precise. Featuring spellbinding magic, puppetry and original music, Monkey Baa’s award-winning team has turned the whimsical world of the book to a live experience for audiences ages 3+ and their families.

YABBA Hall of Fame". yabba.org.au. Young Australians Best Book Awards Council . Retrieved 2 September 2021. Beata Bowes (25 January 2018). "10 Classic Australian Children's Books". victorianopera.com.au . Retrieved 2 September 2021. In the introductory class I was horrified to discover that, in an otherwise highly demanding academic course, one of the first assignments was to write a children’s book. A children’s book! Mem Fox is a beloved Australian children's author, and the writer of Possum Magic. She is a professor and public speaker, though has been semi-retired since 1996.Justine Power, ed. (2018). IBBY Australia Honour Books List 1962-2018. IBBY Australia. p.17. ISBN 978-0-646-99553-3. Richards, Kel (1 June 2022). "Kel Richards: Beloved children's classics are being sacrificed at the altar of politically correct wokery". Sky News Australia . Retrieved 7 June 2022. Possum Magic has been set to orchestral music and performed three times by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, but not recorded. It has also been made into a highly successful musical which has been touring Australia every two years or so, but which is now in its final performances. (Sept. 2013) Dianne Smith (June 2000), "Biographical Note", A Guide to the papers of Mem Fox (PDF), Lue Rees Archive, p.3 , retrieved 2 September 2021 Complete List of KOALA Winners" (PDF). static1.squarespace.com. KOALA . Retrieved 2 September 2021.

The tenth publisher: Omnibus Books in Adelaide, accepted it but asked me to cut the story by two thirds, re-write it more lyrically, make it even more Australian and change the mice to a cuddly Australian animal. I chose possums. (Australian possums are very soft and cute.) Poor Julie re-did all the illustrations. The book was published early in 1983. Goodall, Hamish (2 June 2022). "Australian researcher claims children's book are not diverse enough". 7 News . Retrieved 7 June 2022. Molan, Erin (3 June 2022). "Erin Molan: Storm over classic kids' books is diversity gone mad". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 7 June 2022. Perhaps one difference between writing for young children and writing for adults in general is that in picture books an author can present any number of strange and unlikely things, and the audience will accept it — not as fact, but as a part of the story. So it is with Possum Magic; of course you turn invisible with a potion, and of course the only way to make yourself visible again is to travel around the country eating typically Australian junk food. Anything is possible in a world where possums talk, and wear glasses and sneakers. Things do make sense within the world of the story (somewhat): ‘…which is why Grandma Poss had made her invisible in the first place’.Possum Magic takes us on a fantastical journey to cities around Australia to find the food that makes Hush visible again. O'Brien, Susie; Hodge, Regan (29 May 2022). "Popular children books deemed not culturally diverse enough". Herald Sun . Retrieved 7 June 2022.

Mix dry ingredients, making a well in the centre. Dissolve baking soda in the boiling water. Warm the butter and the syrup in a small pan until the butter is runny, then add the soda & water. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and mix. If the mixture is too dry add a little more water. Roll out and cut biscuits roughly 3 inches round. Bake in oven for 20 minutes at 180 Centigrade (350 Fahrenheit.) Not surprisingly, maybe, since my mother taught with Mem when we were little and in fact Mem gave us elocution lessons while we were in primary school. My parents thought we should have all these extra things in our lives, but we were just as poor as poor could be, so if somebody like a schoolteaching mate could be called upon to get involved, so much the better. She was a dramatic, vivacious teacher. How exactly does Fox get away with this combination? The rhyming accompanies the most magical parts of the story, for example when Grandma Poss is looking at her recipe books. When she’s not rhyming, she’s making use of some other technique, such as alliteration or repetition… a b c Adam, Helen; Hays, Anne-Maree; Urquhart, Yvonne (2021). "The Exclusive White World of Preservice Teachers' Book Selection for the Classroom: Influences and Implications for Practice". The Australian Journal of Teacher Education. 46 (8). doi: 10.14221/ajte.2021v46n8.4 . Retrieved 7 June 2022.Using a clever, nuanced palette of live action, stage magic, an original soundscape, elements of puppetry and projected animation, Monkey Baa’s award-winning creative team have translated the whimsical world of the book to a live experience for audiences 3–8 years (and their families). Once upon a time, but not very long ago, deep in the Australian bush, there lived two possums. Their names were Hush and Grandma Poss. Grandma Poss made bush magic…” Grandma Poss loves making magic. She makes wombats blue and kookaburras pink. She makes dingoes smile and emus shrink. But one day, when danger arrives, Grandma Poss uses her most magical spell to make Hush invisible. What's not to love about possums? They're as cute as can be, mischievous, smart, and best of all they have a fantastic story written about them in the form of the Mem Fox story Possum Magic.