This week we mourn the
loss of Margaret Mahy.
Tributes have flowed
in from around the world with obituaries appearing in the The Guardian, The
Washington Post, The Herald Sun, The Huffington Post...and are still flowing
in.
The world mourns the
loss of THE STORYTELLER.
Margaret Mahy
published over two hundred books for children and was the recipient of The Hans
Christian Andersen Medal (commonly called The Little Nobel) for her world wide
impact on children’s literature.
She won the Carnegie
Medal twice for two young adult stories.
She was inducted into
The Order of New Zealand, our highest civilian honour retricted to only 20
living people.
She was THE children’s
writer.
Her awards are
many...from her first ever published book, The Lion In The Meadow...discovered
by chance in 1969, on an open page of our (famous) School Journal (in a glass case) as
a book fair trade exhibit, by a New York editor, through to her NZ Book of the year in 2011 with The Moon and
Famer McPhee which was also named as an IBBY Honour Book this year.
A fact only lightly touched on in the media, but for me goes above the awards so richly deserved
was that her little stories and poems made up a significant portion of the expanded Ready to Read series which introduced children to reading. She brought
bounce and rhythm and fun into the challenging process of interpreting
squiggles on the page as words and made reading time in the classroom a joy.
This series was sold around the world...and so the world's children learned to
read and laugh and understand that language could be playful and reading could
be the best activity you could ever do.
Beautiful
tributes have appeared in the last few days from this poignant personal poem from a close friend of Margaret’s, to the Pundits Of Literature trying to
compare her with other well known New Zealand writers.
As the tributes and tears flow throughout the land (and now, as I write this) I am reflecting on the loss to the Children’s Literature community here in New Zealand.
In the children’s
writing community you couldn’t and didn’t compare her. She was and is a
colossus and a genius, as her friend and fellow children’s writer, Jack Lasenby said on National Television.
On Facebook today I
read this comment from John McIntyre owner of The Children’s Bookshop and
National Reviewer of children’s books.
We have a growing, and perhaps irrational
frustration at the comparisons of Margaret Mahy as "up there" with
our finest authors, Katherine Mansfield and Janet Frame.
Hell, she wasn't up
there, she was streets ahead.
We like some of Mansfield's stories, but her's
was a slight cannon of work over a short time span, most of it written in the
many years she spent overseas whinging about how restrictive New Zealand was.
Janet
Frame lead a reclusive life, and wrote for a small literary audience. She wrote
brilliantly, and has had some international recognition, but could walk down
the street without being recognised.
Margaret Mahy is the greatest writer we
have ever produced, in any way you measure greatness. International
recognition, generosity of spirit, quality of output, length of career, range
of genre, awards won, languages translated into, critical acclaim, markets
conquered.
Is it because she was a "children's" author that they need
to qualify her greatness, or a we just being unreasonably insensitive. (and
feel free to tell us if you think we are.)
This has roused a
hearty cheer amongst the children’s writers and illustrators here....Margaret’s
words helped children form an appreciation of reading so they could go on to
appreciate the work of other writers.
I had to stand up and
deliver a speech at our Children’s Book Association Annual General Meeting less
than 24 hours after the news filtered through. How do you encapsulate her
impact, personally and professionally and profoundly to people for whom
children’s literature is why they are on this earth? You don’t. You leave it to
the Storyteller herself to provide the words.
The Fairy Child
by Margaret Mahy
The very hour that I was born
I rode upon the unicorn.
When boys put tadpoles in their jars
I overflowed my tin with stars.
Because I sing to see the sun
The little children point and run.
Because I set the caged birds free
The people close their doors to me.
Goodbye, goodbye, you world of men -
I shall not visit you again.
Margaret Mahy
Storyteller
1936 - July 23, 2012
Not R.I.P
but...Dancing Among The Stars
Margaret Mahy’s last book, The Man From The Land of Fandango, illustrated by Polly Dunbar, published
by Clarion will be out in October.
