Mem Fox

About Mem Fox

              Mem Fox was born in Melbourne, Australia, on March 5, 1946 to missionary parents. When she was just six months old, her parents moved her family to Africa where she grew up on a mission in Zimbabwe. Although she grew up on a mission, she was surrounded by books. Her parents were avid readers and introduced her to classic authors such as Shakespeare and Dickens as a child. They also introduced her to the world of poetry. Mem Fox attributes her love of books and the beauty of language to these early literacy experiences.

It was also during her childhood in Africa that Mem Fox first discovered her love of writing and her appreciation of diversity. Since her cousins remained in Australia, Mem Fox began writing letters. In her letters she wrote about the animals, people and experiences in her life. She soon found that through her writing she could describe and communicate to others the experiences that touched her own life. As a minority white child growing up among black people she discovered that the color of a person’s skin did not make them different in the ways that really counted. She realized that color was truly “skin deep”.  Since her childhood Mem Fox has been passionately aware about culture and diversity and has tried to bring this into her writing whenever possible.

In the mid-sixties, Mem Fox moved to London to study drama. She met and fell in love with her current husband, Malcolm. She married Malcolm in 1970 and returned to Adelaide, Australia in 1970. She had a daughter, Chloe, in 1971 and has remained in Australia since that time. During this time she has written over thirty-five picture books for children and five non-fiction books for adults, which includes her best-selling book, Reading Magic. Mem Fox was also an Associate Professor in Literacy Studies at Flinders University where she educated teachers for 24 years until she retired in 1996.

Mem Fox is now Australia’s most notable picture-book author and has received many international honors and awards for her books, as well as many civic awards and honors including two honorary doctorate degrees. Her first book, Possum Magic, was written at the age of 31 as part of a literature course she was taking to obtain her Bachelor of Arts degree. It is now the best selling children’s book in Australia with over four million copies sold. Her books, Time for Bed and Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge have each sold over a million copies in the United States. Her book, Time for Bed, is on Oprah’s list of the twenty best children’s books of all time. Her recent book, Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for 18 weeks during 2008 and 2009 and in May 2010 it won “Best Book for 0-3 year olds” at the International Book fair in Italy. Her most recent book is A Giraffe in the Bath, published in 2010.

            While Mem Fox continues to be a successful writer, writing is her second love. Her first love is teaching, and she is now an international consultant in literacy. She serves as a keynote speaker at many national and international literacy conferences and conventions, where she shares her passion about literacy development. She has visited the United States in the role of a literacy expert and well-known author over one hundred times. She is passionate about the importance of reading aloud to children and shares her expertise with all adults in her book, Reading Magic:  Why Reading Aloud to Children Will Change Their Lives Forever. She hopes that by sharing her knowledge and passion, she will create lifelong readers.

To visit Mem Fox's website click here!

Click here to view a Mem Fox interview where she describes how her Australian upbringing has influenced her books. 

Click here to listen to a Mem Fox interview!

My Favorite Books by Mem Fox 

• Possum Magic
• Time for Bed
• Tough Boris
• Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge
• Koala Lou
• Hattie and the Fox
• Night Noises
• Sophie
• Harriet You'll Drive me Wild!
• The Magic Hat