Julia MacRae, Kevin & Sadie and Gorilla.
So it turns out that Julia MacRae is a household name, even if most households don't know it, including my own. After I posted my last blog about her being the only publisher to take a risk with Joan Lingard's "The Twelfth Day of July" in 1970, I kept thinking why is her name so familiar? Put her name into google and about 170,000 results, 0.27 seconds later, and there she was. Julia MacRae Books, involved in children's publishing for ever. Her name isn't as big as the author's and isn't on the front cover, but if you have children/grandchildren/great grandchildren, look at the back of the books for the publisher's name and I bet you her name will be there.Ìý
One name in particular dominates her portfolio, the current Children's Laureate , whom she championed from 1980.Ìý
While he was doing well, it was a book called " which she published in 1983 that put Browne on the map.Ìý
Pity I didn't know this before I interviewed her because then she could have put me straight on a question that exercises me every time I read it to my daughters. Is the bow tie wearing gorilla who wears her daddy's hat and coat actually the little girl's daddy dressed up, is it a dream that the little girl is having or is it magic and toy gorillas can grow big in the night and embark on all sorts of adventures?Ìý
I think magic is the safest option, because if it really is the daddy dressed up, (a) how did he swing through the trees holding her and (b) why wasn't he arrested for scaling the walls of the zoo at midnight?ÌýAnd (c) why does he have a banana in his back pocket the next morning when the little girl wakes up?Ìý
I rest my case.
Comments Post your comment