{{short description|1984 Children's picture book by Mem Fox}} {{Use Australian English|date=January 2018}} {{Use dmy dates|date=January 2018}} {{Infobox book <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books --> | name = Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge | image = Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge.jpg | image_size = | caption = First edition | author = Mem Fox | illustrator = Julie Vivas | country = Australia | language = English | genre = Children's picture book, poetry | published = 1984 (Omnibus Books) | media_type = Print (hardback) | pages = 32 (unpaginated) | isbn = 9780949641168 | oclc = 19618469 }}
'''''Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge''''' is a 1984 children's picture book by Mem Fox. The book is about a boy, Wilfrid, who helps an elderly friend, Nancy, to regain some of her memory. In 1998, American company Weston Woods Studio released a film adaptation of this book, narrated by the author with music by Ernest Troost.
== Basis == The name of the boy who is the central character is that of Fox's father, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, who, with his wife, Nancy, was sent to Zimbabwe as a teaching missionary.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Fox |first=Mem |author-link=Mem Fox |date=May 1993 |editor-last= |editor-first= |title=Politics and literature: Chasing the "isms" from children's books |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20201162 |journal=The Reading Teacher |volume=46 |issue=8 |pages=654–658 |jstor=20201162 |via=}}</ref>
==Reception== ''School Library Journal'' wrote: "The illustrations – splashy, slightly hazy watercolors in rosy pastels – contrast the boy's fidgety energy with his friends' slow, careful movements and capture the story's warmth and sentiment".<ref name=slj>{{cite journal |last=Peters |first=John |title=Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1966029056 |url-access=subscription |journal=School Library Journal |volume=32 |issue=6 |date=February 1986 |location=New York |page=73 |id={{ProQuest|1966029056}} }}</ref> ''Alzheimer's Australia'' found it "sensitively written".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.fightdementia.org.au/national/library/book-review-wilfred-gordon-mcdonald-partridge |title=Book review – Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge |website=Alzheimer's Australia |access-date=7 December 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2017-02-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170217005337/https://www.fightdementia.org.au/national/library/book-review-wilfred-gordon-mcdonald-partridge}}</ref> A review by the NYU Langone Medical Center called it "a magnificently written and illustrated story about communication".<ref name=lmc>{{cite web |url=http://medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/1648 |title=Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge |website=medhum.med.nyu.edu |access-date=7 December 2016}}</ref>
Fox herself has noted the politically loaded aspects of the story, in having a white hero, separating the elderly from their families, and having a focus on nuclear families.<ref name=":0" />
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== {{Portal|Children's literature}} * [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/19618469 Library holdings of ''Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge'']
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge}} Category:1984 children's books Category:Australian children's books Category:Books about amnesia Category:Picture books by Mem Fox Category:Omnibus Books books