My interview with Pamela Allen to celebrate her 90th year and the publication of her new book, Mr McGee and his Hat is in the Weekend Australian newspaper Saturday 20 July 2024

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/pamela-allen-still-drawing-for-kids-at-90/news-story/d4a365a71a38c8199bf0153bbb14bbfa

Interview with Pamela Allen reproduced in full at the end of this review.

More about Pamela Allen and my review of Mr McGee and his Hat follows

Pamela Allen and her books

Pamela Allen has the distinction of creating an unparalleled suite of picture books. She has won multiple personal and literary awards including an Order of Australia and Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit and is claimed by both Australia and New Zealand.

Pamela Allen generally writes and illustrates her own books. Highlights are Who Sank the Boat?, Mr Archimedes’ Boat, Alexander’s Outing, Bertie and the Bear and Mr McGee. An interesting exception is the 2007 CBCA Honour Book, Doodledum Dancing, written by Meredith Costain and illustrated by Pamela.

The famous Mr McGee returns in a new picture book, Mr McGee and his Hat. A gentle adventurer who is a mix of indomitability and haplessness, he is an older adult with a childlike soul. He loves to return home after an outing (that always brings an unexpected surprise) to his sheltering apple tree, bed and cup of tea.

Pamela’s books are in all libraries and good bookshops and you only have to glance at a Pamela Allen cover or other illustration to laugh or feel warmed.

Some Pamela Allens classics and my personal favourites include:

Who Sank the Boat

Alexander’s Outing

Mr Archimedes’ Boat

Bertie and the Bear

The Bear’s Lunch

Belinda

Black Dog

Grandpa and Thomas stories

And of course, the Mr McGee stories.

BOOK review By Joy Lawn of Mr McGee and his Hat Written and illustrated by Pamela Allen

Published by Puffin, Penguin

“Mr McGee lives under a tree.

This morning when he got out of bed, he dressed for the day.

He was going to play.

He pulled on his trousers, his socks and his shoes, and last was his hat.

He didn’t forget that.”

(Mr McGee and his Hat)

Mr McGee and his Hat is another loveable Mr McGee story. His brolly featured in Mr McGee and the Perfect Nest and now it’s the turn of his longstanding hat. With her trademark humour, rhyming storyline and lively illustrations, Pamela Allen sends Mr McGee on another adventure, a day that doesn’t go quite according to his plans. Caught by a strong wind, he, his cat, furniture, tea-set and hat are flung into the sky. They fortuitously land back home under their familiar apple tree (the symmetrical, stable foundation of the Mr McGee stories that appears on almost every book cover) but his hat is missing so Mr McGee must search high and low. He finds it in a joyously satisfying place.

Written and illustrated by the even more loved Pamela Allen, Mr McGee has captivated children for decades now. Mr McGee himself, his accoutrements of blue brolly, red jacket, purple pants, blue socks and black and red trimmed hat have remained the same throughout the series.

Mr McGee is the enduring, signature character across Pamela Allen’s treasured books.

Mr McGee and his Hat is another fabulous tale. Unpredictable and cleverly and cosily resolved, as always, it has elements of mystery, adventure, and fun with some unexpected surprises for dear Mr McGee.

Congratulations on reaching 90 years and with a highly distinguished career in children’s literature, Pamela. You have delighted and given us great joy through your books.

******

Mr McGee and his Hat at Penguin Books

The Mr McGee Books:

Mr McGee

Mr McGee Goes to Sea

Mr McGee and the Blackberry Jam

Mr McGee and the Biting Flea

Mr McGee and the Perfect Nest

Mr McGee and the Big Bag of Bread

Mr McGee and the Elephants

Mr McGee and his Hat

MY Interview with Pamela Allen in the Australian newspaper

Pamela Allen: still drawing for kids at 90

Joy Lawn

12:00AMJuly 19, 20241 comments

Mr McGee and his Hat is the new release by Pamela Allen.

Pamela Allen has produced more than 50 picture books for children in a career that began, almost by accident, in 1980. She is now 90, which shouldn’t be taken to mean that she’s quitting the craft.

On the contrary, during an interview with The Australian, she conducts a mini-masterclass on how to do the most important thing an adult can ever do with a child: engage them in reading.

“There are two people sharing the book: you, the actor, and the child, the audience,” she says.

“Depending on the age of the child, the first thing they can comprehend is your voice — the music and the rhythm.

“The next is the pictures, and lastly the words. If you’re reading to a small child, please use your voice, the drama of your voice … bark, cock-a-doodle-doo, be angry, be happy … it’s theatre.”

Allen speaks from experience: she is the author-illustrator of some of the most popular children’s books of all time, among them Who Sank the Boat, Alexander’s Outing, Bertie and the Bear, Mr McGee and many others.

She was not herself a voracious reader as a child, saying: “There were no books or libraries in my life as a child. The Second World War was on and there was nothing. I am not a ‘reader’. I draw.”

Her books have distinctive visual qualities: colourful characters that leap, waddle and gallivant across her signature, uncluttered white backgrounds. Children can “read” her stories by looking at the illustrations.

Although she lived in Australia for many years, Allen was born and trained in art in New Zealand, before becoming involved in the Playcentre Movement, “a preschool run by the parents of the children … an educational program based on observation and discussion”.

Allen explains that she “spent about five years in the company of children who could not read. I knew them well”. Her experience with Playcentre encouraged her to develop highly dramatic stories. She reiterates that because young children can’t read, the adult must play an active role in introducing books to them.

Allen’s stories invite interaction. Children become part of the drama and adventure, swept up in the rhythmic storytelling and joining in with the sound effects. Scientific principles, particularly physics, are explained playfully in several of Allen’s books, most notably in Mr Archimedes’ Bath, a riotous tale of an overflowing bath that inspired many children to learn in a practical, fun way.

“After Mr Archimedes’ Bath, one child wrote to me, saying: ‘I loved your mystery book.’ I was intrigued,” says Allen. “Mystery book? I had posed the question (in the book): ‘Can anyone tell me where all of this water comes from?’ After this I was aware that the child had immersed themselves in the book to find the ­answer.”

Pamela Allen at the beginning of her career as an author-illustrator of children’s books

Allen’s books have also featured bears, ducks and other animals, but one of the oldest characters is Mr McGee. Appearing in eight books, he’s the star of her latest, Mr McGee And His Hat (which he loses).

Mr McGee is a clown-like adult with the spirit of a child. But why did Allen decide to make him an adult, rather than a child, or an animal?

Her answer is both simple, and wise.

“To the child, they are Mr McGee,” says Allen, meaning the child enters, and becomes part of the book by seeing themselves as the main character.

The well-intentioned Mr McGee has many daily activities which invariably become an adventure. This emulates the child reader’s imaginative transformation of their day through play. After their own escapades — like Mr McGee who ends each tale enjoying his tea under the apple tree — the child returns to the comfort of home.

“I show security in Mr McGee’s life because I always bring him back to safety,” says Allen.

Her stories are sophisticated, plot-wise, particularly considering the age of the intended young reader. Although she doesn’t regard herself as a reader, Allen became a writer, on the advice of a publisher. It happened after Allen and her late husband, New Zealand artist, Jim Allen, moved to Sydney for his work.

“When I visited a publisher, Ann Ingram, with an armful of drawings hoping for some illustrating work (she said) ‘Why don’t you write a story and illustrate it?’

“I walked back across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and said (to myself) ‘Pamela, you’re an author’.”

Her books have since sold more than six million copies, and she has won six Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards, two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, an International Board on Books for Young People Diploma for Illustration, and the Margaret Mahy Medal (New Zealand’s most prestigious award for children’s literature). In January, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for her “significant service to literature as an author”.

Allen and her husband moved to a retirement village not far from their family home, shortly before Jim’s death, at the age of 100, in June 2023. She is pleased to have another book at the age of 90, and thanked parents and children for the long career she has enjoyed.

“Thank you to all of those who bought my books and shared them with their small children,” she says, as our interview is ending. “Small children who now have small children of their own … Thank you to all those celebrating me and my books.”

Joy Lawn is a critic specialising in literary fiction, young adult and children’s books. Mr McGee And His Hat (Puffin) is out now.