Possum Magic by Mem Fox
Published 1991 · 32 pages · 8,800 words · about 2 hours at an average pace · Children's Literature
How hard is Possum Magic to read?
Possum Magic scores 90 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it very challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 12 out of 100
- Possum Magic uses simple picture-book words with the names of Australian foods and cities as its only unfamiliar items. It sits close to Judy Blume's young-adult register but simpler.
- Sentence structure: 100 out of 100
- Fox writes short, rhythmic sentences made for reading aloud. Repeated patterns of travel and eating keep the grammar basic.
- Abstraction: 14 out of 100
- The story follows two possums, a spell and a trip from city to city. Its ideas about safety and belonging stay concrete, like Asterix the Gaul.
- Information density: 12 out of 100
- At 8,800 words or fewer per spread, each page carries one idea and one food. Illustrations add detail without crowding the text.
- Narrative indirection: 80 out of 100
- Events are stated plainly: the spell, the search, the cure. Readers have almost nothing to infer.
- Symbolic density: 15 out of 100
- Invisibility stands for hiddenness and belonging, and food stands for home. The meanings sit openly on the surface.
- Ironic distance: 50 out of 100
- Fox writes sincerely and warmly, with no gap between what the text says and what it means. It is as direct as Judy Blume's Margaret.
- Resolution withholding: 50 out of 100
- Hush is made visible again and the quest ends with a clear, happy resolution. Nothing is left open.
- Structural complexity: 80 out of 100
- The book moves in a straight line from spell to journey to cure. Each city repeats the same pattern of place and food.
How Possum Magic is regarded
Possum Magic holds a literary regard score of 43 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.