Forgive me for going a little off topic this week – but I really wanted to mention this amazing person.
Some of the books we read as children stay with us forever, don’t you think? Those stories are so incredibly special. I remember I had one favourite book at kindergarten and I refused to leave kindy and go to school without my very own copy. I still have a copy—it was Robert the Rose Horse by Joan Heilbroner.
Children’s books are so important—from spending the time cuddled up with our parents being read to, to learning to read independently ourselves at school and discovering whole new worlds and lives. There are some kids authors who are so gifted. And I’m gutted, as we’ve lost one of our finest this week.
New Zealand author Margaret Mahy wrote over two hundred books and stories—from picture books, to first readers through to supernatural novels for teens and more. She was so awesomely talented. I grew up with her books and now my children are too. “Down the Back of the Chair” is the first book my (now 5 year old) twins memorised by heart. They were so cute reciting it (especially the part about finding ‘one of the twins, down the back of the chair’). Margaret was brilliant—her books were hugely successful. It’s not just New Zealand children who learn to read with her books, but US kids and UK and all around the world. Her books were so poetic–with amazing language–but so imaginative and, frankly, FUN. She won so many awards and prizes and was amazingly prolific. And for me when I was a young woman with a yearning to be a writer—she was a total inspiration. How cool to have such a wonderful, successful woman’s writer living just over the hill. She made being a ‘real’ author possible—right from when I was a kid. Margaret was 76 when she died this week and was dreaming up stories to the end. She got copies of her latest book just last week. How I wish she was still with us to write more of her kind of magic. She was a literary genius.
She was my hero.
About Natalie Anderson
Oh that’s so sad. It seems like all the good children’s book writers of our generation are starting to pass .Makes me feel old.
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Natalie Anderson Reply:
July 25th, 2012 at 6:06 pm
I know Patricia!!! It’s heartbreaking too – she was brilliant, We could have done with even more of her stories!
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Very sad, and yet so powerful that her stories and words live on. I think that is incredible.
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Natalie Anderson Reply:
July 25th, 2012 at 6:07 pm
Absolutely Misa–hundreds of thousands of kids have learned to read with Margaret Mahy’s stories and I’m sure many, many more will too. It’s an amazing legacy.
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There’s no better gift you can give to a child and to the world than to create stories that lead to a life-long love of reading. Margaret has created a wonderful legacy that will live forever.
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Natalie Anderson Reply:
July 25th, 2012 at 6:09 pm
Tracy you’re so right! And her stories were so wonderfully imaginative and full of fantasy–just a treasure
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So sad. I think the books you read as children help to shape your adulthood. I read often as a child and still do now and its the stories you read that inspire your imagination. My childhood favourite was C.S.Lewis The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and I spent a lot of time stepping in wardrobes after that, just wondering if today would be my adventure day. Still haven’t found that wardrobe, but still try
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I was lucky enough to do a writing workshop with her some years back and her sparkle was just contagious. I can’t quite believe she’s not about to pop up in her wig and laugh at all the fuss. She was an amazing writer and general inspiration. Much missed. There is a a group of writers all going into libraries on August 11th to read her stories if anyone downunder is interested. These guys have all the details http://www.kiwiwrite4kidz.co.nz/contactus.html
Sorry – off topic. But she was a hero…so maybe not so off topic after all.
Michele
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