Celebrating Margaret Mahy

Margaret Mahy – word wizard extraordinaire

March 2006 was a significant month for Margaret Mahy, arguably New Zealand’s most popular author. In a little over a week Margaret turned 70 years old – prefaced by a Gala Dinner attended by 290 guests celebrating Margaret’s life and work – and then she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award, known as the ‘Little Nobel’. Taken from the press statement:

 ...” the jury has recognised one of the world’s most original re-inventers of language. Mahy’s language is rich in poetic imagery, magic, and supernatural elements. Her oeuvre provides a vast, numinous, but intensely personal metaphorical arena for the expression and experience of childhood and adolescence. Equally important, however, are her rhymes and poems for children. Mahy’s works are known to children and young adults all over the world.“

Auckland City Libraries has over 200 books written by, or about, Margaret!  Some of these books – particularly the older titles - are only available in our Children’s Literature Research collection and are reference only. There are so many titles it is hard to pick out only a few. Perhaps the best idea is to discuss the list of books which were sent to IBBY as part of the nomination for the Hans Christian Andersen award.

Margaret’s publishing career began with stories published in The School Journal, and she has had many educational readers published since, including:

• The Girl Who Washed in Moonlight, illustrated by Robyn Belton (published in 1987).
  The inclusion of this book is all the more significant as Robyn Belton received the Margaret Mahy Medal for her work in children’s literature in 2006.

Picture books allow Margaret’s love of rhythm and poetry and sense of whimsy to run riot. 

• Her first picture book in 1969, although it had been published previously in a School Journal, was the iconic The lion in the meadow, illustrated by Jenny Williams. This went on to win the Esther Glen Medal.
• The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate was published in 1972 and has had two different illustrators – Margaret Chamberlain and Brian Froud. It is the Chamberlain edition which is most famous and available.  Auckland City Libraries holds copies of both editions.
• The Great White Man-Eating Shark, illustrated by Jonathan Allen was published in 1989, and was inspired by an event in Margaret’s life. She has talked about this in essays, including Notes of a bag-lady. 

Margaret also writes novels for both children and teenagers, many of which are award winning.  The five novels chosen for selection were:

• The Haunting – published in 1982 and winner of both the Carnegie award and the Esther Glen Award.
• The Changeover: a supernatural romance – published in 1984 and winner of both the Carnegie award and the Esther Glen Award; it was also an honor book in the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards.
• The catalogue of the universe – published in 1985, and winner of the Phoenix Award in 2005.
• Memory - published in 1987, winner of the Esther Glen Award and an honor book in the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards
• Maddigan's Fantasia – published in 2005, a finalist in New Zealand Post Book Awards and a television series.