Tuesday, Apr 30, 2024

Albert Ullin was born in Frankfurt on 29 April, 1930, and arrived in Melbourne in 1939, escaping pre-war Germany via Italy with his family. Whilst working for other booksellers he was sent to schools to talk to teachers and parents about children’s literature. At the time he felt there were few trained librarians in schools and public libraries working with children’s books, which led to him, on 1 July, 1960, opening ‘The Little Bookroom’, so named, with the author’s consent, from a collection of short stories by Eleanor Farjeon. He also received permission from Edward Ardizzone to use his drawing of two children reading as the bookshop’s logo. The Little Bookroom was heralded as Australia’s first retailer devoted exclusively to children’s reading.

Over the decades we greatly enjoyed our friendship with Albert. One of our close associations was a joint venture we undertook in 1994 after a chance conversation about our projected pop-up books catalogue, based on a collection we had bought from a private collector, and to which we had added a collection of important early pop-ups bought from an American bookseller at an ILAB Antiquarian Book Fair. Albert had a personal love of the genre and as The Little Bookroom sold new children’s pop-up books, the conversation led to us issuing a combined catalogue devoted to paper engineering, with displays held concurrently at both premises. The catalogue, compiled by Alison Sayers, featured all the principal styles of paper engineering including movables, transformational slats, wheels, flaps, pop-ups, metamorphoses and shaped books. The catalogue succeeded in revitalising (or, in many cases, initiating) interest in the area.

As it was the fiftieth anniversary of the Children’s Book Council of Australia, Albert suggested to the State Library of Victoria that they display pop-up books to coincide with the joint catalogue. The result was the SLV exhibition, ‘Moving Tales: Paper Engineering and Children’s Pop-Up Books’ (18 August to 1 October 1995). Juliet O’Conor curated the exhibition. Every decade of paper engineering since the 1860s was represented, as were all the key figures in the field – Meggendorfer, the McLoughlin Brothers, Nister, Tuck, Dean & Son, Giraud, Kubasta and Pienkowski. The display was supplemented by a loan of books from a private collection, and by pop-ups from the Library’s own holdings in the Pound Collection of children’s books.  The result was an exhibition of worldwide importance.

During his lifetime, Albert received several awards in recognition of his contribution to children’s literature in Australia and overseas, including the 1986 Dromkeen Medal, a Medal of the Order of Australia in 1997, the Australian Booksellers Association lifetime achievement award in 2007, the Leila St John Award in 2009; he was a life member of the Children’s Book Council of Australia.

Albert died in 2018, and his personal archive of pictorial and manuscript material by .many children’s book authors, artists and publishers was bequeathed to the State Library Victoria.

The Little Bookroom continues today, having been bought by Albert’s staff upon his retirement in 2004.