25 Jul 2012 09:42:58
The prolific and much-loved children's author Margaret Mahy died aged 76 in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Monday, following a short illness. Tributes have been pouring in for the writer, whose humorous and often fantastical stories engaged with the everyday. "It's terribly sad news," said friend and fellow author Judy Corbalis. "It's a huge loss – she was only 76, we might have expected another 10 years."
Winner of many of the world's major children's prizes, including the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen medal, Mahy took the UK's Carnegie medal with her first two novels, The Haunting and The Changeover, both supernatural coming-of-age tales. She was also awarded the Order of New Zealand for her internationally acclaimed contribution to children's literature, which ranged from picture books to short stories and novels. "It is in the nature of books, that they have the capacity to make you feel powerful about what you can alter and achieve in your life," she once said.
"There was such scope and depth in what she did," said Corbalis. "She confronted any topic in her writing, particularly for older children, and she had a tremendous sense of fun, underpinned by a very high intelligence. She was interested in science, in the nature of death – all sorts of things. She was very widely read."
Born in Whakatane, New Zealand, in 1936, Mahy was working as a librarian when an American publisher spotted one of her stories in a children's journal. "It was one of those romantic things that happen," she said of her discovery. They asked her for more material, and Mahy sent more than 100 stories, representing 15 years of unpublished work.
Her first picture book, A Lion in the Meadow, was published in 1969, and Mahy went on to expand her repertoire to encompass fiction for younger children and then for teenagers. In 1980 she became a full-time writer, with more than 100 books to her name today.
"I think that librarian background, and her huge breadth of interest, much more than most children's authors, made her one of the writers to have broadened out children's literature today," said Corbalis.
"Farewell Margaret, I salute you, it has been both an honour and privilege to know you," said the former New Zealand publisher and bookseller Graham Beattie, calling Mahy "one of New Zealand's greatest-ever writers".
