Possum Magic

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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… Greenaway, Judith. "Review: Possum Magic, Sydney Opera House". ArtsHub Australia . Retrieved 2019-07-10. 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…” Leanne Mason (27 October 1991). "Schoolchildren judge two authors as the most cool" (scan). The Canberra Times. p.37 . Retrieved 2 September 2021– via Trove. There are now a lot of Australian picture books which star local fauna. Many of them are fairly pedestrian, introducing the young reader to the names of the creatures and perhaps what they eat and their circadian rhythms, but this story is particularly well done because of the mixture of local fauna (beautifully anthropomorphised), Australian food (for humans), Australian geography and Australian dialect. Few Australian picture books manage to combine all of those things, and so Possum Magic has become for Australians like a celebration of Australia. Indeed, this is a book by an Australian, written for Australians, and there was a time when this in itself was something to be celebrated.

Justine Power, ed. (2018). IBBY Australia Honour Books List 1962-2018. IBBY Australia. p.17. ISBN 978-0-646-99553-3. Mem Fox was born in Australia, grew up in Africa, studied drama in England, and returned to Adelaide, Australia in 1970, where she has lived with her husband, Malcolm, and daughter Chloë, happily ever after. 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.We've no doubt that your students will absolutely love reading the story, it's a firm favourite here in the office, but that's not where the fun ends. We have a range of great possum-themed resources that can accompany your study of the story, or any kind of lessons themed around possums themselves, like this Possum Magic Craft Template. The foods that Grandma Poss and Hush eat are seen to be quintessentially Australian and their journey is a search for national and cultural identity as well as visibility or subjectivity. Fox’s narrative suggests that an individual’s sense of self does not arise spontaneously but is derived by literally consuming culture. By eating these significantly Australian foods Hush becomes visible and can be recognized as having a legitimate place within Australian society; she thus eats her way into culture. This reflects and supports the notion that ‘we are what we eat’ and that food narratives teach children how to be proper human subjects.

The consumer above is describing, nay lamenting, that they as parent are required to have a dialogic reading experience with their own child. 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.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! One problem. Grandma Poss can’t find the spell to make Hush visible again. And then she remembers...this particular magic requires something more, something special, something to do with food...people food. Possum Magic takes us on a whimsical journey to cities around Australia to find the food that makes Hush visible again.