Australian children's literature: May Gibbs and her Gumnut characters

May Gibbs was the Australian children’s author of Sugglepot and Cuddlepie – the feature of a small exhibition at the Canberra Museum + Gallery from 16 July to 11 September 2016. The exhibition ‘May Gibbs by gum’ looks at her stories and artworks in a collection of her books in different formats.

May Gibbs (1877-1969) was born in Sydenham, Kent, in England. Her family migrated to Australia in 1881. She returned to England to undertake art studies in 1901. After her studies she settled in Sydney in 1913, where she published her first children’s book – Gumnut Babies (The Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie) – in 1916. It is a fictional story of bush babies living in native Australian trees called eucalyptus gum trees – influencing her creation of fictional gumnut babies.

May Gibbs married Bertram James Ossoli Kelly in 1919. In the 1920s she wrote three stories: Little Ragged Blossom, Obelia and Nuttybub, and Nittersing. In 1924 she wrote Bib and Bub as a comic strip for a newspaper – and also Tiggy Touchwood.

Her husband died in 1939 and Gibbs continued to live in Nutcote with her dogs. Her last was was Prince Dande Lion published in 1945.

The exhibition – in association with the National Centre for Australian Children’s Literature – also focuses on Nutcote, the home of May Gibbs in Neutral Bay in Sydney, Australia, bought in 1923, which is now a museum.

http://www.cmag.com.au/exhibitions/may-gibbs-by-gum

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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