Mem Fox Themes

No matter where someone is born, no matter what a child looks like, the book reminds us, we all have "ten little fingers/ and ten little toes." Her latest book, to be published in Australia this week, is called I'm Australian Too. Mem Fox, Australia's most famous children's author, has written such books as Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, which celebrates the humanity common to all children. The author of books advocating tolerance and acceptance was detained by U.S. immigration officials as she arrived in America to give a talk about the importance of tolerance and acceptance. "The worst of it," she says, is that she was questioned not because she was a children's author "but because I was just anybody." About 20 travelers were taken …show more content…
She was held for just under two hours, she says, and aggressively questioned about her visa status. Scheduled to speak about this very theme, when she was detained by immigration officers at Los Angeles International Airport. After her experience at the airport, she says, she is unlikely to return. She says that when she politely apologized, the officer asked her, "What do you want me to do, stand here while you finish it?" And that "was just the beginning of it," she says. Fox says that the conference organizers were paying for her hotel and an honorarium that just about covered the cost of her flight. It was the insolence that was beyond mind-boggling." Fox says that she was waiting in the immigration line when she was pulled aside. Fox says she was aggressively asked about her finances and the nature of her trip. The implication, she says, was that she was coming here to work. Over the past decade, Fox, a grandmother who will turn 71 next month, has made numerous trips under similar arrangements. Ensconced in a book, she at first did not hear officers calling her name "I felt ashamed to be a human