Ivy Wallace

Ivy Lilian Wallace (October 7, 1915 - March 13, 2006) was a British artist, actress and authoress, best known for writing the Pookie series of illustrated children's stories. She was born in Grimsby. She started drawing as a child with the encouragement of her parents, who recognised her talents and thought that she might become an artist. However when she left school, she joined Felixstowe Repertory theatre as an actress. When the Second World War broke out she joined the British film industry to make educational films. Later in the War she moved to doing support work for the police and it was while working for them that she first thought of Pookie, the winged rabbit.

At first he only existed as a drawn character but she soon wrote a story about him and at the end of the war submitted it to Collins, the publishers. After initial rejection, the book was accepted for publishing. She wrote a series of books about the character which were popular during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1950 she married one of the Collins directors and moved to the Scottish Borders where she spent the rest of her life. She gave up writing upon the death of her husband in 1967 and Collins eventually stopped publishing the books. However they were revived in 1994 when Ivy and her daughters re-printed the stories for their own publishing company.

In addition to the Pookie books she wrote two other series, one of which, "The Animal Shelf", was later adapted for television and released as 13 animated episodes.

Bibliography

Pookie series
* "Pookie" (1946)
* "Pookie and the Gypsies" (1947)
* "Pookie Puts the World Right" (1949)
* "Pookie in Search of a Home" (1951)
* "Pookie believes in Santa Claus" (1953)
* "Pookie at the Seaside" (1956)
* "Pookie's Big Day" (1958)
* "Pookie and the Swallows" (1961)
* "Pookie in Wonderland" (1963)
* "Pookie and his Shop" (1966)Animal Shelf series
* "The Animal Shelf" (1948)
* "Kinker visits the Animal Shelf" (1948)
* "Woeful and the Waspberries" (1948)
* "Getup Crusoe" (1948)
* "The Huge Adventure of Little Mut" (1949)
* "Gumpa and the Paint Box" (1949)
* "The Treasure Hunt" (1951)Young Warrenders series
* "The Young Warrenders" (1961)
* "Thanks to Peculiar" (1962)
* "Strangers at Warrender's Halt" (1963)
* "The Snake Ring Mystery" (1966)Other books
* "Baby Days" (1950)
* "The Kitty-poosies" (1951)
* "My Book of Kittens and Puppies"

External links

* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/01/db0102.xml Obituary] at The Daily Telegraph
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