Mem Fox Quotes

I think that my favourite animal is a baby possum, or a joey. The face of a really little joey is so divine – so, so gorgeous.

When I say to a parent, “read to a child”, I don’t want it to sound like medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate.

The fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks between a child, a book, and the person reading.

My mother was a very difficult woman to please. She was the sort of woman who thought that if I were praised I would get above myself.

Writing a picture book is like writing ‘War and Peace’ in Haiku.

The fastest way to teach a child to read is to teach them to write.

You’re not lonely when you’re teaching, you’re not quiet, you’re laughing most of the time, you’re having a wonderful time interacting with young people. It’s the best fun in the world.

If you are not a writer, you will not understand the difficulties of writing. If you are not a writer, you will not know the fears and hopes of the writers you teach.

I have very little patience with children.

I think sometimes we rush through countries, ticking off the attractions, but that’s missing the point.

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 a minimum of three stories a day to the children in our lives, we could probably wipe out illiteracy within one generation.

Books don’t harm kids; they arm them.

I was the most Australian child ever in the world, even though my home was in Africa.

Reading aloud and talking about what we’re reading sharpens children’s brains. It helps develop their ability to concentrate at length, to solve problems logically, and to express themselves more easily and clearly.

DO NOT attempt to bring up other people’s children through your text.

I made a lot of friends at school, and they were all Africans. I could have felt very different. I didn’t feel different, I didn’t notice the color of their skin, I didn’t notice the color of my skin and I have remembered that all my life.

As everyone knows, nothing is sweeter than tiny baby fingers and chubby baby toes.

The fire of literacy is created by the emotional sparks between a child, a book, and the person reading. It isn’t achieved by the book alone, nor by the child alone, nor by the adult who’s reading aloud—it’s the relationship winding between all three, bringing them together in easy harmony.