Margaret Mahy, award-winning children's author, has died

Thu, 07/26/2012 - 10:15am by sernabad

Margaret Mahy, a New Zealand children's author, died July 23rd at her home in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Ms. Mahy was a children's librarian who wrote books on the side. Twelve years into her career, an editor from Franklin Watts Publishing happened upon one of her stories in a New Zealand educators' journal and flew to NZ to meet with Ms. Mahy. It was a successful discussion and by 1980, Ms. Mahy quit her library position to write fulltime.

Her youth novel, The Haunting (1982), won her her first of two Carnegie Medals for Children's Literature. In this charming, edgy book, eight-year-old Barney has ESP. Two years later, Mahy won the Carnegie again for The Changeover, in which 14-year-old Laura battles to save her little brother who is possessed by evil spirits.

Her whimsical, lyrically catchy Bubble Trouble (2009) became a bestseller.

In 2006, the Swiss-based International Board on Books for Young People bestowed upon Ms. Mahy the Hans Christian Andersen Award for her lifelong contribution to children's literature.

Ms. Mahy, who was 76, had been battling cancer.