Tiger Magic

Thirty years ago, on my first birthday, I received a copy of a new release picture book.

The author was Mem Fox. The book was Possum Magic.

On Tiger's first Christmas, her doting Uncle R bought her a copy of the very same book. 

And today, Tiger went to her very first party - a birthday party for Possum Magic.

There is something, well, magical about that. There's something uniquely marvellous about a timeless book, as loved by mother as daughter. It is a kind of immortality, this making of books. I am privileged that it is my profession. I won't live forever, but my books are a small part of my soul that I will leave behind. Not everybody gets to have that honour.

When Mem Fox passes from this earth (hopefully not for a huge number of years - she has far too many stories inside her to flee from us any time soon), she will leave behind something miraculous. A book beloved of mothers and daughters, fathers and sons. A book whose words are intoned, learned, repeated as a kind of mantra of childhood. A book whose mentioned foods are now a sacred feast, the eating of which transports us back to the first moment we knew their thaumaturgic power. 

Today, Tiger ate a tiny piece of her very first Vegemite sandwich, a miniscule sliver of lamington.

And there it was. A brand new visible tail. Maybe not visible to anybody but Tiger, but it was there. 

Happy birthday, Possum Magic. You were important to me. You are important to Tiger. Thirty years on, it is a privilege to share you with my darling girl. It is a ribbon that connects us. When I read you to Tiger I don't feel thirty-one. I feel small and new as she is, and full of wonder. And magic.

~ Love, Miss Cackle x