‘Not like your normal storybook’: The children’s author, 91, still sparking young imaginations

3 hours ago 1

Pamela Allen’s children’s books were the soundtrack of my twin sons’ early years.

“Swish swash swoosh, sings the waves,” we would chant when we read Allen’s Grandpa and Thomas.

An exhibition at the State Library of NSW is celebrating the 91-year-old’s life’s work.

Reading the book in the United States far from family in Australia, it was even sweeter that Thomas’ gentle grandpa was a dead ringer for our toddlers Jim and Ned’s late grandfather, Jim. It was based on Allen’s late husband, also a Jim.

Enjoying Alexander’s Outing about a family of ducks visiting Sydney’s Domain and the Hyde Park, the boys, now 23, would outquack each other, and me. When poor Alexander falls into a deep hole, we would discuss what food we would drop to tide him over until help came.

“My books are made to be shared, it’s the voice that brings them to life,” Allen said on Sunday at the State Library of NSW’s launch of the first major exhibition of her works.

Allen, 91, read from her new and 63rd book, COCK-a-DOODLE DOO! , before characters dressed like those in the books led children on a Pied Piperish path to the exhibition, The Curious World of Pamela Allen. It draws from her archives acquired by the library in 2020, and includes copies of the 55 books she wrote and illustrated, and the eight she has illustrated.

Kids enjoying the exhibition at the State Library, which is on now and free to visit.

Allen told the launch that she was used to readers like me who (weepily and sentimentally, I admit) regale her with memories of reading the books.

They were more than words. They became an experience, she said.

She had a friend who “licked his child” when he got to the part in the 1993 book of Mr McGee and the Blackberry Jam, where McGee gets licked by heifers crowding around.

She said the books were designed to communicate with babies who hadn’t yet learnt to talk.

“When a baby doesn’t have any language, they have got sound,” Allen said. “They can read the pictures, and if there’s a voice conveying the meaning of the story, the child will get it without words, without language.”

“Noise is important,” she said, interrupting her line of thought with a loud “COCK - a-DOODLE DO”.

“It is almost everything here.”

Visiting the new exhibition with his children Eva, 6, and Jamie, 8, Richard Emanuel, a business manager with Nine Plus – which owns the Herald – said the family were “big time fans” of Allen’s books.

“It is not like your normal storybook; you get very animated and involved.”

Allen started writing in her 40s after moving from New Zealand to Australia. She said she had been miserable, her children were at school, her husband preoccupied with work, and they had bought a big house with stairs to please her two children. It had potential for renovation but she needed funds.

With a bundle of her drawings, she visited HarperCollins Publishing. Told there was no work for illustrators, they suggested she write a book to go with her illustrations.

Recalling her walk home that day, Allen said she identified her strengths. She could draw, she knew preschool children from her time working in the NZ playcentre movement, and she could talk.

“As I walked across the Harbour Bridge, I said, ‘Pamela you are an author’.”

She also realised she could recognise bad writing. She is now working with others on a “recipe book of how to write a good book”.

The State Librarian, Dr Caroline Butler-Bowdon, said the exhibition was a way to show families that the library loved having them visit.

The Curious World of Pamela Allen runs until 2027. It is free to visit.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.