Margaret Mahy

A literary portrait of New Zealand's best-loved children's author - a new edition. Margaret Mahy's death on 23 July 2012 brought forth an unprecedented outpouring of grief and heartfelt tributes from around New Zealand and the world. Her passing at 76 was breaking news in the media, unstoppable through the social networks, noted by political leaders in Parliament and by children in classrooms throughout the country. Margaret was one of the world's leading authors for younger readers for four decades. In her own country she was popularly known as the writer in the multicoloured wig who wrote marvellously funny picture books and enchanted generations of school children. Her story had its fairy-tale elements. In 1968, a hard-pressed solo mother of two daughters, working as a librarian by day and writing long into the night, she was 'discovered' by a leading American publisher who flew 'to the end of the earth' to offer her a multi-book publishing contract. From those first picture...