That sounds like the start of a story.

According to Mem Fox, it is the most important story of all: parents reading with children.

As an incredibly well-known children’s author and literacy advocate, Mem Fox has spent decades helping children by getting their grown ups to read together.

Here, she tells us a little more about the influences in her life. Plus she explains how reading aloud can give grown ups happiness too.

We are so excited to speak with you today Mem, thanks for making the time.

Let’s start with you…What are you reading right now? And what kind of books do you love to read?

It might be easier to say what I don’t read. I don’t read fantasy, or crime novels. I don’t read biographies or history books.

I do read literary novels. At the moment, I am reading Caledonian Road, which is a very long novel. I’ve read lots of other novels this year, like Lola in the Mirror. I loved that.

Looking back, what do you recall about your parents and carers reading to you as a child?

I remember my mother reading to us. There were three of us. My little sister was born ten years after me, so it was my second sister and me.

We were read to a lot – very Australian books, because I grew up in Zimbabwe, but my parents were wildly Australian. Their friends sent books over to us. I was imbued with Australian literature, I was immersed in it, so that of course shaped my life.

I was probably more aware of being Australian than kids living in Australia. It often happens with expatriates, because parents are so keen to keep culture alive, whether they are in Zimbabwe, or Vietnam, or Italy.

The two books that I remember most are Snugglepot and Cuddlepie and Blinky Bill. Of course, they are outdated now.

In your book ‘Reading Magic’, you say that your experience reading aloud to your daughter – and more recently your grandson – shaped you as a reading and literacy advocate.

Did those experiences also shape you as a children’s author? What else has influenced your writing?

My grandson is now 14 years old, and I did read to him for many, many years. But he was not the great influence in my life. I started writing when my daughter was about 13, so it was reading to her that influenced me about how to write for children.

As much as that was an influence, I was also a university lecturer. I was talking to kids and watching my own students teach. I knew from reading to my classes what grabbed children. A lot of it was the authenticity of the voice, the level of emotion, which was never fake. It has to be felt by the child.

Also very important, I realised, was how well-written the book was. If an author wrote well for children, they met that standard in keeping their attention.

In your video ‘What’s the point of picture books?’, you say the main point of reading aloud to children is “to create happiness for children”.

Is that more important than being able to read?

Many children become literate without happiness. At school, they are taught in a certain way, but it may be painful, it may be slow, it might make them miserable. There might not be much life in the lesson.

Of course, literacy and education are monumentally important, but if you want a child to be literate and educated, it’s so important to make them happy about literacy and books from the time they are born.

This only takes about ten minutes a day.

You can read three books in ten minutes, or the same book three times. If people haven’t got ten minutes a day to bond with their children, wouldn’t a goldfish be a better thing to have in their house?

Can picture books also create happiness for grown ups too?

In many ways, reading to children can make happiness for grown ups. No matter what kind of vile day you have had yourself, at work or out in the world, if you’ve had a horrible day and you sit down and you read them a hilarious, noisy, rhythmic, repetitious book, then all of you will calm down.

It’s not just the child who is calmed down – the balloon of the day is burst, it goes away, and there’s this wonderful interaction between the book, the child and the parent.

It can be heaven for the parent. It can make you laugh out loud. It can change the focus, it can make you thoughtful, it can make the whole evening routine much more calm.

It’s like tying a bow at the end of the day.

What are your top 3 tips for parents and carers to enjoy reading to young children?

Hang loose. Don’t ever think of it as a duty. It will kill the atmosphere if you come to it as a duty. Come to have a good time, and you will.

Seek advice. From people with children of your age, or carers, or the internet. Look for classic books for kids that have lasted for ages. The Maurice Sendak book Where the Wild Things Are – it was written in the 1960s and it is still incredible. Read the books that have lasted and lasted.

Don’t change a word. Go with the flow. If you change a word every writer in the world will secretly hate you. And because the children are learning language, the unfamiliar words are very important.

A friend of mine was reading Our Dragon to her child. The word ‘extinguished’ is in one of the verses – and she changed it. If you change ‘extinguish’, the child doesn’t learn ‘extinguish’.

The more vocabulary you have, the easier it is to express your needs and your feelings, otherwise they are lashing out because they can’t express themselves and they are frustrated. Too many kids get to kinder unable to speak, simply because nobody has spoken to them.

Reading aloud together means kids are learning words and talking with their parents and feeling understood. Even the interaction of, “Oh my darling, we have read that book a million times, if we must let’s read it one more time then choose another together, how about that?” Everything in that interaction is teaching them words and meaning.

One more thing: remember that libraries are free!

Who can afford books these days, when everything in life is so expensive? The knowledge that a library is there to be kind to you, and help you find books for your kids, well that is so important. They might look like police stations or schools, but they are actually very friendly places inside.

Thank you so much Mem.

Look out for Mem’s new book ‘Meerkat Mayhem‘, released in 2024.

For more of Mem’s tips for reading with children, check out our next interview.