I was born in Melbourne, Australia, in March 1946, but left at the age of six months to go to Africa with my parents, who were missionaries. The mission we lived on, Hope Fountain, was a few miles from the city of Bulawayo, in Zimbabwe, which used to be called Rhodesia. In my first year at the mission school I was the only white child so all my close friends were black. We learned to write by drawing our letters in the red earth. Later, we graduated to writing squeakily on slates. Now, of course, I use a computer, but I still use a pencil and paper whenever I have a writing problem to solve. My brain loves it when I write in pencil.

My father’s name—Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge—is also the title of my second book. Miss Nancy, in the same book, is my mother; the rest of Miss Nancy’s name comes from the names of my two sisters, both of whom are younger than I am: Jan Delacourt (who used to be Jan Delacourt Cooper) and Alison Partridge. Jan lives in Italy and Alison lives north of Sydney.

In the mid-sixties, totally unsophisticated, I went to drama school in London and spent three happy years changing my Rhodesian accent, speaking Shakespeare, singing Beatles’ songs, wearing miniskirts, and dyeing my hair—a habit I haven’t grown out of. It’s been red for years, and will remain so until I die. Being a red-head has become my brand, my recognizable logo.

I took a great risk in 1969 and married an Englishman—a highly gifted teacher of French and drama, who is now a gorgeous retired drama lecturer. Malcolm and I have lived happily ever after and have now been married for 40 years (as of 02:01:2009) Our daughter, Chloë, to whom Possum Magic is dedicated, was born in 1971. She was a journalist for seven years in Adelaide and Paris; then a high school teacher of French and English at Loreto, a Catholic girls’ school in Adelaide; and now she is a politician: a Labor Party Member of Parliament for the state seat of Bright in South Australia, which she won in the March 2006 elections. In 2009 she was promoted to the position of Parliamentary Secretary to the Premier, Mike Rann. (The term ’secretary’ in politics has no relation to being a secretary in business!)

Back to me—after all, this is all about me!—as a mature age university student in my early thirties, I studied children’s literature at Flinders University. This set me, totally unawares, on the road to some fame and even fortune since it was during that course that I wrote the first draft of my first book: Possum Magic. It was rejected nine times over five years but went on to become (and continues to be, to this day) the best-selling children’s book in Australia, with over three and half million copies sold. In 2004 its 21st birthday was celebrated with parties and events in thousands of schools and other places around Australia, and a new re-designed edition was launched. The colours of the original film of the illustrations were fading because it had been reprinted so many times! They now look gorgeous again.

Since Possum Magic I have written over 30 books for children: 33, I think, at the last count. Around half of these have become bestsellers which just goes to show that occasionally I write great books as well as pathetic ones. Some of my books have different titles and different illustrators in the USA but essentially they are the same inside.

One of the best moves I ever made was to re-train, in 1981, out of drama into literacy studies, to find out how children best learn to read and write. Literacy has become the great focus of my life—it’s my passion, my battle, my mission and my exhaustion. If you’re the parent of a child aged from 0-7 I hope you will enjoy my bestselling books for parents: Reading Magic: how your child can learn to read before school and other read aloud miracles. If you are a teacher I hope you will be challenged but also thrilled by my book Radical Reflections, about the teaching of reading and writing.

Writing is my second love. My first is teaching, to which I admit an addiction so powerful that I’m surprised I had the courage to retire early (in 1996, aged 50) from my position as Associate Professor, Literacy Studies, in the School of Education at Flinders University, South Australia. I taught there with great satisfaction and happiness, full time, for twenty four years. I cried three times in my last class, so sad was I to leave.

I now spend most of my time writing presentations urging parents, teachers, and others to read aloud to children aged between 0-5, and I travel the world doing it. I have travelled a great deal as an influential international literacy consultant to places as diverse as Bahrain, East Timor, Guam, Tanzania, China, and of course to the USA which I have visited over 100 times. I have spoken at hundreds and hundreds of conventions in the States. I also travel—I mean I work like a tired old dog!—extensively around Australia, which I particularly adore since this is my beloved homeland. And I continue to write picture books when the spirit moves me, so if you’re still reading this, and if you like my books, and keep buying them, I promise to continue to write picture books for children even though it’s the hardest job in the world and much more of a grind that most people realize. I have at least four new books in the pipeline, currently being illustrated. They will appear over the next five years.

My most recent book Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes has been a big hit in the USA in particular, where it’s still on and off the New York Times bestseller lists. It has been there for 17 weeks so far between October 08 and May 09. 17 weeks! Incredibly exciting! The sales are due, in large part, to the utterly endearing illustrations in the book, divinely painted by Helen Oxenbury whose feet I kiss. I have made up a sort of lullaby to Ten Little Fingers which will be on YouTube by mid-May 2009, I hope. Unfortunately, I sing it myself and I’m 63 and asthmatic, and each verse starts an octave lower than the verse that precedes it. (I exaggerate, but only a little.) At least there’s enough of a recognisable tune for parents to be able to learn it and sing it to their own children beautifully. The song by itself, without any visuals and sung with more care, will be on this website by mid-May 2009.

In June 2009, a newly designed and presented, small hardback edition of Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge will appear in Australia to celebrate its 25th year of publication. I absolutely adore this book even though I shouldn’t say such things about my own work. It is one of my classics, so if you have found me through more recent books like Where Is The Green Sheep? you might like to make Wilfrid’s acquaintance. It’s for older children, somewhere between a sophisticated three year old up to a child of seven, or a grandparent of 87.

Two board book editions are coming out in mid-2009: Where Is The Green Sheep?in the USA; and Ten Little Fingers in Australia.

And finally, a new book of mine appears in the USA on May 5th, 2009, and in Australia on June 1st 2009: it’s called Hello Baby!. I hope parents and babies will adore it.

Until I grow even older, that’s my life story for now…