Falling Forward

Margaret Hamilton has spent most of her life working with books, particularly children's literature, as a librarian, bookseller and publisher. In this memoir she recounts the story of her life and how she came to make the decisions and take the opportunities that she did. Part of the telling of her life story, away from books, can be repititious at times, but in the rest of the book Margaret provides an interesting guide to the development of children's literature in Australia since the 1960s.

Margaret Hamilton was born in 1941 and when she left school her first job was working as a library assistant. She then completed her library studies enabling her to be appointed to more challenging roles including working as a children's librarian. After taking a short break she was offered work in a bookshop promoting children's books. Later Margaret and her husband became involved with a number of book publishing firms before starting their own children's book publishing company - Margaret Hamilton Books. Margaret was also very involved in the Children's Book Council of Australia.

The 1960s was a period for the development of children's literature in Australia. Prior to that children's books from England were the mainstay in bookshops and libraries. Authors such as Ivan Southall, Colin Thiele, Nan Chauncy, Hesba Brinsmead, Patricia Wrightson were becoming accepted as writers of books for Australian children in the 1960s. Picture books by Australian authors are now accepted as the norm but this was not always so. Margaret Hamilton was particularly interested in promoting book illustration. Margaret and her husband also had a cottage - Pinerolo - were she ran occasional workshops for artists plus talks about books presented by authors and artists.

As a children's librarian in the late 1960s / early 1970s when promoting new Australian books was an important aspect of the work, I was particularly interested in reading this account of the development of Australian children's literature.

Falling Forward was published at the end of 2022. Margaret Hamilton died on 24 November 2022.