Yep, still alive!

Hello again. March 7th 2001? What? When? How did that happen?

My New Year’s resolution was to update my Hot News Space regularly but who keeps New Year’s resolutions? No one I know. So, contrary to the evidence, I’m actually still alive, still over-worked, and still (probably) over-paid, for which I thank heaven for little books and little kids who love them.

The last two months have been whirlwinds of work, in between which there were lots of family-related events as well as two trips to the USA for great conferences in Santa Clara county, California, and Charleston, South Carolina in January; and then Dublin, Ohio, in February. I have four more trips scheduled to the USA this year. I dread the journey each time and think I just can’t do it again, but teachers’ response to what I say is always so wild and positive and heartwarming that I enjoy the presentations in the end, and I love meeting people afterwards at receptions and book signings.

I turned fifty five this week (March 5th) which was a ghastly shock since I’d been thinking I was about twenty seven. I knew this had to be wrong, however, because Chloe turned thirty in February. Chloe, to our astonishment, has given journalism a miss for a while and has decided to enrol in a Dip. Ed. at Adelaide University to train as a French teacher in high schools, like Malcolm many years ago. I guess children grow up observing what their parents adore, such as reading and writing and teaching, and they think to themselves: Why not me, too? She loves the course and I’m ecstatic. It’s fabulous having her here.

My fragile parents continue to undermine my immune system. I have a cold, or chest infection, or lost voice a hundred times a year, or so it seems. I find they are taking up more and more of my time and emotions and causing the kind of stress from which there is very little escape, since I love them too much not to care what happens to them. Other Baby Boomer children will know exactly what I mean, and where I’m at. It’s hard. Without a supportive husband and two brilliant younger sisters where would I be? My ‘Italian’ sister Jan (i.e. the one who lives in Italy) comes here twice a year to help out. In spite of this, I’m so tired I’ve decided not to go on holiday this year with Malcolm to Turkey and Armenia. More travel? No thanks, not in 2001. Malcolm says it will give me a chance to keep silent for once and get my voice back! Is he relieved I’m staying home, or what?! He is looking good and feeling brilliant, a year after his heart surgery.

To coincide with the Australian publication of Reading Magic I’m updating and modernising my entire website in May this year, with new and gorgeous photos of Malcolm, and quite nice photos of the rest of us, and lots of new information, including a whole chapter from the new book on Reading Aloud, which I’ll be reading aloud~of course.

That is, if I survive until May. The Book, as it has become known in my house and in the house of my American editor, has nearly killed me off. It’s now down to 27,000 words, a mere pamphlet compared to what we had at the beginning. It has been re-drafted twenty six times. No wonder I’m ill all the time. Each hideous draft gobbles another piece of my health. It is now finished and ready for Australian publication in May (Sydney: PanMacmillan), and close to being ready for the USA in September. The two editions are the same, apart from a few minor details. I’ll be touring for the book in Australia in the last two weeks in May and will post my schedule on the web-site.

I think I am actually ill with excitement over this book. In the last two years, brain research has been so astonishing~and even scary in its implications~that we now know more than ever about the importance of stimulating children’s brains from birth. And we also know what happens if that stimulation doesn’t occur. The importance of reading aloud regularly and often (from birth to five years, at the very least) is being emphasised by speech pathologists, child psychiatrists, pediatricians, early childhood educators and even politicians. This very week the NSW government, in its new pre-school curriculum, has stressed the importance of reading aloud. If all parents knew that reading aloud to our children makes them happier and far more clever than they otherwise might be, we could wipe out illiteracy in one generation. However, some parents still don’t get it because it seems too easy, which is why I hope my book will make a huge difference in their lives and the lives of their children.

Apart from living through the hottest summer in Adelaide since 1906 I think that’s all the news for now. Once again, thanks for the wonderful messages in the Guest Book, and apologies for not being able to reply to any of them.

All the very best!

Mem Fox xxx