Possum Magic

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Applying a post-colonial reading to this storybook, which was published in the early 1980s, it is pertinent to point out, however, that the national and cultural identity Fox writes about is limited: geographically to the coastal regions of Australia and gastronomically to exclude indigenous foods and flavours. Possum Magic is a 1983 children's picture book by Australian author Mem Fox, and illustrated by Julie Vivas. It concerns a young female possum, named Hush, who becomes invisible and has a number of adventures. In 2001, a film was made by the American company Weston Woods and narrated by the author. To extend this idea a little further, though it is true that young children will accept almost anything in a well-written story, this is precisely the reason we need to be careful about offering them stories with a modern ideology. When there is the symbolic annihilation of non-whites and female characters, and world-views which should have gone the way of the dodo, it’s not that the child reader doesn’t notice; it’s because these ideas are being so thoroughly taken on board that the ideas themselves seem invisible.

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! The two main characters are Grandma Poss and Hush. Hush has been made invisible by Grandma to protect her from Australian bush dangers. The story details the duo's adventures as they tour Australia searching for the secret to Hush's visibility. It is a rhythmical story of Australia's varied landscapes and the animals in them. 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.it is] one of the prime effects of power that certain bodies, certain gestures, certain discourses, certain desires, come to be identified and constituted as individuals… The individual is an effect of power, and at the same time, or precisely to the extent to which it is that effect, it is the element of its articulation. The individual which power has constituted is at the same time its vehicle. My absolute favorite childhood book is just as magical now when reading it to my own daughter. This adorable story follows Hush and Grandma Poss on a wild food-filled adventure to make Hush visible again. Every time I read it, I get nostalgia for all the yummy Australian goodies I grew up with! YABBA Hall of Fame". yabba.org.au. Young Australians Best Book Awards Council . Retrieved 2 September 2021.

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.Again, this popular technique is employed here, with three sequences that begin with: Because she couldn’t be seen…’ NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATION OF POSSUM MAGIC 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’. 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!

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. 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.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. Published 1983, this was Mem Fox’s first book. She famously didn’t find it easy to find a publisher, but we say that of any book that took off later, don’t we? Almost all books, no matter how classic they become, find it difficult to get a placement at a publishing house.