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The story is vintage Mem Fox with its pudgy wombat who loves everything about the Christmas Nativity play. He's wanted to be in it as long as he can remember, and at the auditions he volunteers for every part only to discover that he's too big for some parts, too small for others, too short, too clumsy . . . until he wonders if there's a part for him at all. The solution will bring joy and perhaps a tear or two to readers during the Christmas season.
Argent pictures wonderfully compassionate kangaroos, koalas, numbats, emus, bilbys, and platypuses as poor Wombat grows more disheartened with each rejection for a part. In costume or out, the native Australian animals display such human concern for Wombat that readers of any age or nationality will be immersed in the drama.
In a conversation with Fox, she told us that the story had originated with her Australian publishers at Omnibus Books. They wanted a Christmas story, and they had a building in mind to picture for the setting. Fox went to work, but the story didn't come easily. This associate professor of literacy education at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, wrote and erased again and again -- in this case, for about two years. Finally her publishers asked her to give it one more go, and that's all it took. Her mix of repetition and emotion in the text builds to a warm, satisfying conclusion. Fox credits her now-grown daughter Chloë with teaching her that the emotional content of a story is what makes a child go on "reading and reading and reading," and she often uses animal characters to soften the impact of weighty human issues.
We asked Fox about Christmas celebrations in Australia where December 25 is the height of summer. She replied that after 200 years, Australians have realized they don't have to eat enormous meals of turkey and stuffing and rich cakes -- they are more likely to have lobster -- but their menus are about the only difference in the land down under. Gift-giving, the tree, decorations, and caroling are all the same.
Fox first appeared on the U.S. scene for children's books in 1987 with the publication of Possum Magic, the all-time best-selling children's book in Australia. She comes to this country about twice a year to attend conferences and visit bookstores. She is a prolific writer, although not all of her titles are published here. Time for Bed, with Jane Dyer's beautiful illustrations, is her most popular book to date in the U.S. Fox is also the author of Koala Lou, Guess What?, Night Noises (all from Harcourt Brace) as well as Zoo-Looking which Mondo Publishing issued in this country.
"I don't think children change at all, although I do notice the influence of television on children in the U.S.," says Fox. "I write for the child-within-the-parent who is reading to the child. . . . I always write with adult readers in mind because my audience is often too young to read on their own." No fly-by-night writer, she combines her background as the daughter of missionaries to Africa, her experience as wife of a drama teacher and mother to a ferocious reader, and her love of teaching language arts to give children -- and their adult readers -- classic stories with emotional solace.
That is exactly what Fox has done in Wombat Divine. All of us, young and old, know the experience of wanting to be part of something so badly we'll take any part. And to wind up with the best part of all -- that's divine!
Etta Wilson is Children's Book Editor of this publication.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.