The write stuff
Actor-turned-author tells wild tales in series of books for kids
Isla Fisher discovered Marge the babysitter — the star of four kids books by Fisher — after Fisher had exhausted her impression of a famous animated pig.
“I think everyone was getting sick of hearing my impressions of Peppa Pig, so it felt time for something new,” said the mother of three and star of such films as Confessions of a Shopaholic, The Wedding Crashers and Now You See Me. “Then I just did the Marge voice, which is just silly and everybody loved it and then it kind of developed on from there.”
Developed it has from a fun voice that a mom used when telling her kids bedtime stories to books that have done very well in the U.K. and America, and are now available in Canada.
The outside world first met Marge in the book Marge in Charge in England in 2016. Marge follows in the footsteps of other great child-minding characters like Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee, except Marge is a lot messier, more mischievous and even a bit snooty.
What she lacks in size (“she is definitely NOT tall enough to ride a roller-coaster.”), she makes up for in personality and spunk. She has long rainbow-coloured hair, a big belly and skinny legs that resemble twigs.
Marge is a rule-breaking, whirlwind who happens to sound like — when Fisher does her voice — a posh, high-pitched version of one of Lady Grantham’s Downton Abbey friends.
Marge’s charges are sevenyear-old Jemima and her little brother Jake, who is four.
She has a royal background — as she points out whenever she can — and has travelled the world.
She makes chocolate soup and is a magician that can blow pink lollipops out of her nose.
The Marge in the four books is based on a couple of Fisher’s friends. She says one is “very fantastical and larger than life and full of great stories,” and the other is related to the royal family.
The books are for little kids with six or seven being the sweet spot for these stories.
“It’s such an important age group, the seven-to-nine, and I felt, well at least for my kids, there weren’t that many sort of comedic books to really get kids interested in,” said Fisher, who is married to fellow actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
“Laughter is just a wonderful way to connect with kids. But equally I think all the sto- ries take place within a family on a very small scale. There are no magical elements to them. There are just things kids can really relate to and hopefully help them to work through any little emotional or social problems they’re experiencing and they can relate to the characters in the story.”
And, of course, it is fun to be naughty.
“What is great about Marge is that I kind of get to live vicariously through her,” said Fisher, who is currently shooting the new Michael Winterbottom film Greed.
While writing the books, Fisher turned to a panel of experts — her own kids — if ever she needed to run something up the flagpole.
“Anytime I am met with resistance from my editor in regards to a plot point or dialogue, or just something, I always run it by my kids, and I always go with whatever they say because ultimately my books are not written for 40-year-old women. They’re written for teeny, tiny people,” said Fisher.
While the books are going to make those teeny, tiny people giggle, Fisher sees them as a start to a lifelong love of books, a love she said she developed as a child in a “family of readers.”
“When you get lost in a book you are never alone,” said Fisher. “It’s a way to respect other people that are different from us, that are from different places and different times. Your vocabulary becomes enlarged and you can think more clearly and precisely when you have more words.”
In the beginning, the plan was just for the Marge in Charge book to go out into the world, but publishers, agents and editors can be a persuasive bunch.
“It was just going to be one. I had no intention of working that hard,” said Fisher. “Even fun, cute kids books take a lot of time. That’s why I’ve kind of taken a hiatus now ... my publisher still wants more and I just think it’s a lot of work for me. It’s one of those things unlike acting where someone says cut. You are done, you’ve moved on from the scene. It might not have gone exactly the way you anticipated it but it’s not your decision. It’s the director’s story, so you can kind of relax, but with writing, as you know, you can tinker and go back and change everything.”
Fisher, who did most of her writing in a coffee shop near her London home, says Marge might be making her way to the big screen in an animated form.
“I am actually in the throes of those conversations,” said Fisher. “Ideally, that’s where we are headed with Marge.”
And yes Fisher would love to trot out her Marge voice.
“I would be jealous of anyone who was cast as Marge,” said Fisher, “If it wasn’t me.”