The Memory Book 2005

My first day at kindergarten.

The coatpegs had pictures on them.

I wanted the ship or the aeroplane,

but I got the jam tart because

it was the only one left.

I was very disappointed.

A picture of a luscious glistening pastry hangs on the wall above a tiny white figure, who has turned away in shock or intimidation. Is he a ghost or a piece of paper? Beneath him, the ground cracks or leaks – hard to tell which. The red of the tart could be blood instead of jam to this small disappointed being.

Watercolours are the artist’s choice for his fragmentary childhood memories : predominantly whites, greys and yellows. Author-illustrator Neil Curtis depicts himself throughout as a pillowcase ‘for my own reasons’, and made this book out of the art he produced:

“I didn’t mean this to be a book. It was meant just for me, drawing to remind me where I came from. It was meant to comfort me after my mum died, which is what it did. A lot of time has passed since my childhood in London, but I was surprised at how clear the memories were. They tumble out and some were happy, some were sad, but I drew them as they came.”

The book itself is the size of a Beatrix Potter or those tiny books placed temptingly at the cash registers of bookstores like lollies in the supermarket. In fact, publisher Allen & Unwin classified it, on the back cover, as GIFT/MEMOIR.

Curtis’s illustrations for Joan Grant’s text in Cat and Fish won him the CBCA Picture Book of the Year in 2004, and I think that’s possibly why The Memory Book was submitted for consideration the following year.

And it never would have found me if I hadn’t been appointed as Western Australia’s judge for the Children’s Book Council of Australia awards. Terms for each state judge ran for two years, during which we each read everything for ages 0 – 18 submitted by Australian publishers. (It’s different now.) https://cbca.org.au/our-judges/

(Fortunately no one on the interview panel asked, Has your child ever torn a book to pieces while you left her alone?)

The whole family participated in the opening of the boxes and the sorting. The study floor covered with stacks of novels; the loungeroom couch strewn with brightly covered picture book; and the table not much clearer. I’d thought my world book-filled before – I’ve recently started describing it to myself as ‘making a nest’ – during the years of being a CBCA Judge, it was a nest fit for Bunjil.

All the entered books had to be retained while I worked through the judging process : writing reports, reading the reports of the other judges meant going back over the books again. I’d love to say I kept them all in strict number order so that they could easily be found but…

Big Bob and Ms May became shadow judges. Big Bob, now in high school, seldom seemed to have time for books, so I paid close attention when he picked something up – even if it was to make a space for his plate at dinnertime. Ms May, having becoming a confident reader, browsed freely. (She also had to find room to eat.)

In all of that heaping and sorting, a little book could easily get lost. But this one kept rising to the top.  Not alas, among all the judges, so it didn’t make it to what is now known as the longlist. The Memory Book conveyed, in simple paintings, depths of childhood feeling that I’m still poring over twenty years later.

Over 700 books were delivered to the farm where we lived. Approximately one box every three weeks, for most of the year, with Christmas publishing causing a flurry in December/January.   Our semi-rural location meant that our mail was delivered by local contractors. These wonderful people drove up alongside the old feed tin that served as our letterbox to leave our mail from the driver’s seat.

The boxes, each with at least twenty books, couldn’t be slotted in so easily, and there was weather to contend with. Behold: the Kett Ex-Wheelbarrow Parcel Shelter (patent pending.)

This gallant tin trough performed stoically in this role from January 2005 until March 2007, and was still in place until recently (other members of the family get parcels too.)

Neil Curtis would have been 75 this year: he passed away, much too young, in 2006.

After admiring the Better Beginnings Family Literacy Program launched in 2004 by State Library of Western Australia, I was lucky in late 2005 to be offered a part time role supporting Sue North and Nola Allen with its rollout.

The best years of my working life were about to begin.