CYSS [NSW] Nancy Booker Honour Lecture 2000

Falling forward

State Library of NSW
February 2000

To admit that I've been working with children's books since the middle of last century makes me feel a bit like a dinosaur. But since the general interest in dinosaurs is on a high lately, perhaps the story of a publishing dinosaur's experiences might be of interest to people. I could write a book about the changes I have seen in that time span, but I am going to concentrate on a very personal overview, punctuated with some of the books I have met on the way a bit of name-dropping really!

I have called my talk 'Falling Forward', to plagiarise the title of David Metzenthen's novel. That's what my life and my career have been like no plans, no great ambitions just falling forwards into new experiences, new opportunities, new challenges.

I grew up in a non-book family. We were rather poor, and lived in Surry Hills, which was then Ruth Park's Harp in the South country and not the trendy area it is today. I can't remember ever having a new dress, mine were always hand-me-downs from my cousins who lived way out in the country, at Parammatta. Our reading matter was also hand-me-downs not books, but comics, hundreds of them, from our cousins. My father used to come home with a box of them every so often, so my sister and I had at least some reading matter. Someone was later to say that this early pictorial reading matter probably formed my visual appreciation and my love of picture books and illustration. In spite of reading comics at home, I can also remember being read to by various teachers at school a chapter every English lesson I think it was. So my childhood was not a total cultural desert. I enjoyed listening to the stories, but rarely read myself, preferring to spend my leisure time drawing and playing outdoors. I have now given up both these latter pursuits and prefer to read instead!

When I was ten we moved, so I went to high school in Parramatta. Because I didn't want to study anymore, I was the only one in our year who didn't apply for a teacher's college scholarship when I did the Leaving Certificate. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I have lately told my eighteen-year-old daughter who has just completed her HSC that there's nothing wrong with not knowing what you want to do - I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up!

Not knowing anything about libraries, and urged by my mother to get a job, I applied at the new Parramatta Library. I was given the job because of my honesty when I admitted that I knew nothing about books but was willing to learn. Little did I know that I would then embark on a six years part-time study to secure the ALAA Registration Certificate! AND I was one of the only people who achieved a credit in Children's Literature (the other was Lilith Norman). I loved reading all the children's books and the examiners said that it was probably meeting the books for the first time without any childhood preconceptions that gave me a fresh approach. I think it was probably more to do with the inspiring lecturers, - librarian Marjorie Cotton, Maurice Saxby and his wife at the time, Joyce Bonniwell.

One of the first jobs I was given at Parramatta was at the small children's branch. I seemed to fit in right away. I liked interacting with the children, I liked reading their books and I enjoyed the challenge. That was obviously the beginning of what has become a lifelong love and commitment to children and their books. This time was also the beginning of my association with the Children's Book Council, which I joined, and was quickly seconded to the committee, around 1960. (Which means that I have now worked for the CBC for forty years. How time flies when you're having fun!)

From there I eventually progressed (or fell forward) to children's librarian and although the job in itself has changed enormously, I don't think much has changed in the general attitude to people who choose this speciality. I can remember a remark from a visiting chief librarian during children's book week when I was busy with competitions and displays. He actually said, "when are you going to do some real work". I was to learn through experience that this attitude persists even today in the twenty-first century, throughout librarianship, bookselling and publishing that children are not important and therefore their books are not important. I was also to learn, through my work for the Children's Book Council Awards Foundation seeking contributions toward the $1 million we are raising, that this attitude is also alive and well among politicians and the business sector.

When I worked at Parramatta Library, children's books were mostly published in England. This was the era of Oxford University Press' excellent list of Australian children's fiction. Authors like Nan Chauncy, Hesba Brinsmead, Eleanor Spence, Joan Phipson were emerging. We avidly promoted Australian writing in the library and these books proved popular. Picture books had not yet entered 'The Golden Age'. The technological advances made in printing in the second half of the twentieth century were astounding and probably far outstripped all advances made in the whole six centuries since Gutenberg's breakthrough in 1450. The CBC was then struggling to find a picture book to give an award to. In 1958, the year before I began at the library, the winner was Piccaninny Walkabout, a black and white photographic book that because of its title would not even see the light of day today. More often than not there was no award and no commendation made in the Picture Book of the Year Category. That same year, Nan Chauncy won the Book of the Year Award for Tiger in the Bush.

It was generally assumed in those days that authors were either dead or overseas as they had no public profile at all, so it was a revelation to many when I began inviting authors to the library to talk to children and teachers. The authors turned out to be real people warm and friendly. I shared these authors with Hazel Hume, then children's librarian at neighbouring Blacktown, and together we pioneered author talks in libraries. They were paid with a bunch of flowers or a packet of toiletries, (rather like the camellia they received for the CBC book of the Year Award.) Author appearances have today become very much a part of the job. I sometimes wonder now how authors find any time to write, they are so busy on the promotional circuit. It was during those early book weeks that I met people like Noela Young, Jean Chapman, Lydia Pender and Mavis Thorpe Clark - all of whom became long-standing friends, although Mavis sadly died last year.

1971 saw a watershed in Australian picture books. William Collins had appointed Anne Ingram as their children's editor and Waltzing Matilda won the picture book of the year award. I had left the library to work in a bookshop but I still remember that year. My husband had filled the position of children's librarian at the library and promoted the book by taking his guitar to work and singing the song with the children, which was hugely entertaining. Waltzing Matilda went on the win the Critici in Erba prize at the Bologna Children's Book Fair and it had been in print ever since. It's fascinating that the illustrator, Desmond Digby, has never produced another book, although he would probably have had quite a following.

I found working in a bookshop fascinating. It was another world, compared to the library. I was now exposed to the commercial side of children's books. I quickly learned to talk with authority about children's books, and to know the bookshops customers and to match them to the stock. Eleven years at the library had given me a head start and a firm base for my knowledge of books. We held many happy promotions for children's books and were one of the first bookshops to do so. These successful events continued well after I left the bookshop three years later to work at Hodder and Stoughton.

By 1973 Hodder and Stoughton, an English publishing company with a subsidiary here, had, like some others, recognised the growing interest in home-grown product, especially children's books. They appointed Barbara Ker Wilson as their children's editor. I had developed an avid interest and curiosity for publishing and all the processes involved in producing books. I was offered the job of production manager which I took, without knowing anything about the job. (Thus following the now-established pattern in my life falling forward). Learning on the job has lots to recommend it. I was "thrown in at the deep end" on a steep learning curve. Not only was typesetting undergoing the change from hot metal to computers; but printing, especially colour printing, was undergoing a revolution in Hong Kong, where cheap colour printing was developing a reputation. I quickly became friends with printers' reps and picked their brains constantly. Our first list at Hodders consisted of five children's books A Dog Called Debbie by Lyla Stevens, Wildfire by Mavis Thorpe Clark, Seventeen Seconds by Ivan Southall, The Chinese Boy by David Martin and The Gift-Wrapped Pony by Anne Farrell.

These books sold in enormous quantities. We printed over 8000 hardbacks of each and they reprinted soon after. Today's print-runs are very modest by comparison (unless you're John Marsden!) and most novels are in paperback.

Our first venture into illustrated books was in 1974 with the publication of Jean Chapman's Tell Me A Tale. Jean had an idea for a collection of stories, songs, poems and things to do and we decided to publish. Deborah and Kilmeny Niland, twin daughters of Ruth Park, had risen to prominence with their picture book Mulga Bill's Bicycle. It won the Visual Arts Award for Best Picture Book in 1974. We snapped them up for Jean's book a huge undertaking every one of its 190 pages illustrated in colour and black and white. This was a gamble, but one that would pay off enormously. Jean's collections, with Deborah and Kilmeny's illustrations won awards, were reprinted and became classics. The first was followed by Tell Me another Tale then by special themed anthologies The Sugar-Plum Christmas Book, Velvet Paws and whiskers (on cats - I wonder why we never did a dog collection!), Pancakes and Painted Eggs (Easter), Haunts and Taunts (Halloween) and Cockatoo Soup (Australian's Bicentennial). It's interesting to wonder whether these books would ever be considered for publications today. They gradually priced themselves out of the market place as prices rose and the market shrank. Deborah and Kilmeny lasted through most of these collections but were in the meantime producing other picture books. When I discovered There's a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake by Hazel Edwards in the slush pile, Deborah was the obvious illustrator. That book has been the most successful Hodders have published and has become a popular series. Maurice Saxby, in The Proof of the Pudding, said "Hazel Edwards has never had as good an idea as There's A Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake and she has never been better illustrated than by Deborah Niland."

As Hodder's list grew, so did my job. Barbara left and I took over her job as well as mine. I eventually became a director of the company with responsibility for the entire publishing program, which included adult books, educational books, a thriving Christian list and of course, children's books.

Working at Hodders gave me opportunities that I had never dreamed were possible. Meeting so many authors, illustrators and creative people; being part of the whole creative process; enjoying a high rate of job satisfaction, especially when I smelt and touched a brand new book; and of course the beginning of my love affair with Italy. My trip to Bologna in 1975 was my first trip overseas and I couldn't believe my luck! The Book Fair was a knockout quite small by today's standards but incredibly stimulating. After the book fair, Max and I spent a mind-boggling month tearing around Europe from Vienna to London and all points in between. Little did we know that I would be able to go to Bologna again and continue to go for the next twenty-five years. In this twenty-five years the Australian presence at the book fair has grown enormously and the interest in Australian children's books has burgeoned. We have come a long way from the year that someone said, when learning that I was Australian "don't you speak English well" to the heady days of the 80's when Americans queued at the Australian stand to snap up our picture books, It was in those days that authors and illustrators like Julie Vivas, Margaret Wild, Graeme Base, Junko Mirimoto, Pamela Allen, Alison Lester, Victor Kelleher and Patricia Wrightson were taking the world by storm.

Our main purpose for attending the book fair has always been to sell rights in our books to publishers in other countries. However, in 1980 I discovered the American book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, so I snapped up the Australian rights. Little did I know that this book would become a classic and that I would later buy the Australian rights to the beautiful picture book and establish a close family tie with the author Eleanor Coerr, who is now, incidentally, working on her autobiography at my suggestion.

It was in 1981 that I fell forward in the biggest possible way! After fourteen childless years, I was suddenly pregnant! Friends were stunned and said things like "now you can practice what you've been preaching for all these years". Fortunately, Melissa turned out to be a reader, otherwise I would have had to send her back! Having a small baby around the house heightened my interest in books for early readers. In fact, several of my friends, who were editors in London, were pregnant at the same time, so a glut of 'baby books' soon developed. Some of my favourites are still the lovely baby books by Jan Ormerod Sleeping, Reading, etc. I also published Grug, which some of you may remember from your own childhood. The author/illustrator just walking off the street one day with this idea for a series of books based on a character who developed from a Burrawang tree. The series went on to sell nearly half a million copies!

By the time I left Hodders in 1987 they had a thriving children's list. It included authors like Christobel Mattingley, Jean Chapman, Hesba Brinsmead and Ivan Southall and new authors like Robin Klein (whose first book was a picture book called The Giraffe in Pepperell Street which won the Critici in Erba Prize at Bologna) and Margaret Wild (whose first book was a picture book called One Show On), award-winning illustrators Deborah and Kilmeny Niland and new illustrators like Rodney McRae, Patricia Mullins and Dee Huxley. I had also published the biggest cricket book ever published in Australia, I had lunch with Sir Donald and Lady Bradman (to the envy of all my cricket-loving workmates) and I still don't know anything about cricket!

So it was time to "fall forward" again! This time I fell into my own business and with Max as a full-time partner, we began Margaret Hamilton Books. I remember we had several full pages of whimsical names for the company, but Max ended up saying "if Paul Hamlyn can do it so can you". There was one major difference in this change I knew the business of publishing, I had fantastic contacts and I had already established a reputation as a publisher. So it seemed easy! But I experienced once again, a steep learning curve - I had to become computer-literate! Not only did I have to learn to use a computer for correspondence but I was to become proficient in designing books on the computer, which I still do, and enjoy it immensely.

We were one of the few publishers specialising in children's books and we built up the business from scratch. There were just the two of us to do everything commissioning, editing, designing, proofreading, typesetting, contracts, shipping production, accounting, publicity, marketing, promotion, foreign rights, permissions, and making coffee!

We started with three books in the first year. Our first, Who Killed Cockatoo? was a watershed for Rodney McRae and Australian publishing. Published in Australia's bicentennial year, it was a new edition of a book first published in 1870. Rodney's colourful and detailed illustrations featured icons and symbols of Australia, so this book was a spectacular beginning for the new imprint.

We were delighted that every bookshop in Sydney had a window display, Reading Time used it on their cover, it featured on the cover for the Australian catalogue for Bologna and it sold to the US what a start!

In ten years as an independent publisher we saw huge changes in the market for children's books. It has gone from the heady days of the bit print runs of the 80s to much more conservative figures. The 'up-market' children's picture books which I love the most, are struggling against a barrage of mass market books, but all books now compete against the enormous onslaught of computer games, videos and other electronic devices.

The CBC shortlist was introduced in 1982 and this in itself has had a profound effect on children's publishing - not all of it good in my opinion. Just getting on the shortlist is the holy grail for authors illustrators and publishers. But with the emergence of more and better writers and illustrators there are many who don't make it to the shortlist - perfectly good books which miss out, just because booksellers and librarians have become slaves to the shortlist. The CBC has tried to address this by issuing the Notable Australian Children's Book list for the last few years but this has had little impact on the buying habits of librarians. It is a source of puzzlement to me when I hear librarians say that they haven't got time to read the books they buy. Why not, I ask. Isn't it still the responsibility of librarians to know their stock intimately, to get books into the hands of the right child at the right time?

The CBC has grown enormously in the last forty years. Now it is a far more professional, but still voluntary, organisation. I was honoured to be elected national president for 1991-1992. Little did I know this was 'falling forward' once again into a very busy time and a huge challenge. My suggestion to hold a CBC National Conference fell on non-receptive ears at the AGM. So I and the new national committee worked towards a conference anyway, and the first was held in Manly in 1992. It was an outrageous success and I'm proud to see that the fifth national conference is coming up in May this year in Canberra.

The CBC has also come a long way from the days when a camellia was the prize for winning the books of the year award (if you were female) or a handshake if you were a man. During the heady days of the Myer/Grace Bros sponsorship of $50 000 per year, the prize money was $10 000 per category, shared between the winning authors and illustrators. Since the demise of that relationship, the CBC has searched in vain for another sponsor. My friend June Smith and I suggested the idea of a foundation at the CBC AGM at the end of 1996. It was accepted and we were appointed joint managers. So my work for the CBC these days is dominated by our quest to raise $1 million so that the annual interest earned will find prize money for the Book of the Year Awards in perpetuity. This has proved to be an extraordinary amount of work, (faced with blank faces when we mention children and books), but we have already passed the $600 000 marks and the interest has been used to fund the awards. The magic $1 million mark doesn't seem so far away, no wonder I hope we can reach that before the end of this year so that June and I can get on with our lives.

Max and I fell forward once again in 1997. Margaret Hamilton books became a division of Scholastic Australia. This gave us an enormous boost. In a world where children's books frequently come off second best to the more lucrative adult-blockbuster market, we joined a company whose entire staff is devoted exclusively to children's books. We now have the strength of Scholastic distribution, marketing and administration behind us and we enjoy the luxury of still working from home. Our hardback picture books have never been stronger and we are very proud of the six we published last year and excited about the beautiful new ones we are working on for this year. Although we have a successful list of fiction, it is working on the picture books that I love the most finding unique stories, matching the perfect illustrators to the story, working on the deign, typesetting and art direction and producing the book to the highest possible standard.

Every book is a new adventure, a new challenge.

It's been a long journey from librarian to publisher. Lately I've been feeling myself teetering on the edge of yet another adventure. I wonder where I'll fall forward to next?

Margaret Hamilton

Margaret Hamilton has had extensive experience in children's books - as a childrens librarian, a bookseller, a publisher and as a parent. She is a recipient of the CBC NSW Lady Cutler Award for Distinguished Service to Children's Books in New South Wales and the Australian Publishers Association Pixie O'Harris Award for Distinguished and Dedicated Service to the Development and Reputation of Australian Children's Books.

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