Good grief! A week of the new year gone already. Happy New Year! I know 2009 will be a terribly challenging year as the global financial crisis hits us all in various ways but hey, there’s nothing in the GFC to stop us from continuing to read to children. Many of us already own books that we can read again and again to the children in our lives, and for those of us who don’t, libraries exist to make it possible. It’s such a joy, so hilarious and such an endearing activity that I can’t imagine anyone being able to resist it if they have children in the house, or in their care.

I said last year that I was too tired to maintain the Hot News section of my website but honestly at New Year I do feel compelled to freshen up the site and say hello to my readers and supporters around the world. So hello again, and stick with me: I might have more energy than I imagined in 2009. I have three resolutions: work less, spend less and eat less. Working less will mean I’m not so busy, which will mean I’m not so permanently weary, which will mean I have the brain power to sit down and write hot news, which will mean the website remains alive and kicking, just like me. I turn 63 this year on March 5th and will be in Bahrain at the Arabian Reading Association conference on that day which will make a boring birthday hugely exciting.

In spite of the vagaries of 2008, by which I probably mean the child-care-of-babies debate in Australia which I was hauled into accidentally, I am fit and well. I didn’t go to hospital with asthma. I can lift 7 kilo weights in one hand. (That’s 15.4 pounds for those in the USA.) I can ride my bike for half an hour without dying of wheezing, although my face does match the colour of my bike helmet at the end of a ride: purple. This colour clashes massively with the mainly red flowered crazy pants that I wear, the white T-shirt and the lime green net-vest thing that covers it so people in cars can see and avoid me. Plus the sun glasses. I look mad. When I see someone I know I call out: ‘Hi, Judy! (or whoever) It’s Mem Fox!’ because even my family doesn’t recognise me. The bike itself was $100 from Woolworths because when I bought it I thought I might not continue to want to ride a bike at my age: the fad might wear off, as fads often do, and I didn’t want to waste money. Actually the bike is great: heavy and safe, and I ride often at very quiet times of the day through the near beachside suburbs, never on main roads, nor even along the Esplanade. Riding a bike has the effect of making me feel like a child again. I love it. When no one’s looking I even take my legs of the pedals and go ‘whee!’ down hills. Little hills. I don’t do big hills. So there you go: a new angle on Mem Fox to carry us all into the New Year!

Thank God it’s 2009 in terms of the child care debate. I was both a wicked witch and a snow-white heroine in that debate last year, depending upon where people stood on the issue. It was ghastly and uplifting at the same time. My favourite communication at the end of the year came from a woman called Judith Law: ‘You win my 2008 award for courage. Have a blessed Christmas.’ I didn’t mean to be courageous. I just was. I intend to say nothing further on the child care issue. Reading to children and early literacy are my true passions and I never want to be sidetracked again, although I’m pleased that my comments started a national conversation, with many newspaper columnists and others buying into the debate and influencing political agendas in early childhood in Australia.

On the book side of things, cheerful news indeed. As I type, my latest book: TEN LITTLE FINGERS AND TEN LITTLE TOES has been on the New York Times bestseller lists for ten weeks and is currently at #8. When the Christmas books disappear perhaps it will move further up. It did get to #6 in late October. It’s seeling wildly in Australia too, but who knows about England? In June this year I’ll have a new book out called HELLO BABY. It’s filled African animals, the animals I grew up with, so it’s dedicated to a few of my long-suffering African friends in Zimbabwe, with whom I am in regular contact.

Talking of Zimbabwe and the current horror in Gaza/Israel I feel wildly irritated when people call a minor irritation ‘a disaster.’ Most of us in first world countries cannot imagine a disaster. In Gaza and Zimbabwe people have no water, medicines, fuel, employment or safety. Please let’s not complain about the little sadnesses we might encounter and call them a disaster. One of my sisters was diagnosed with ovarian cancer late last year which could be termed a disaster, and has indeed been greeted by us with immense horror, yet she is one of the most cheerful, resilient people you could meet.

I am off to East Timor next week, a country that has suffered real disasters in its recent history, a country struggling to function, yet filled with hope. (It’s the world’s newest nation, just north of Australia.) My book WHOEVER YOU ARE has been translated into Tetum, the local language and will be the first children’s book catalogued in the new National Library in a ceremony to be held on January 12th. The theme of the book is inclusivity and the sameness of children and people around the world, a peace message in other words, which is desperately needed in this world. The theme of my babies’ book, TEN LITTLE FINGERS AND TEN LITTLE TOES is similar. Peace is the other of my passions.

At the end of January Malcolm and I are going on a holiday to Oman to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary, a milestone we reached on January 2nd this year. Some good things happen.

Chloe came to eat with us last night and complimented me, laughing, on the ‘interesting’ meal. It was hilarious. I am much more of an adventurous cook than she is although she’s brilliant at cakes and desserts. I made ricotta cakes with tomato chilli salsa, and watermelon with mint and fried haloumi, and a green salad. What’s so ‘interesting’ about that? We live in country filled with migrants from Italy and the Middle East and Greece, and our climate is similar and the food fresh and divine so why not be ‘interesting’?!!

Of course I intend to eat less this year. I’d almost forgotten that. But I weigh less than I did in 2007, so that’s start.

So there we are! From Fatty Fox, here’s to 2009. Manifold blessings to you all!

Love

Mem Fox