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- Died
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- May
- Margaret Mahy was born on March 21, 1936 in Whakatane, New Zealand. She was a writer and producer, known for The Great White Man-Eating Shark (1992), Kaitangata Twitch (2010) and Up Our Street (1985). She died on July 23, 2012 in Christchurch, New Zealand.
- She was awarded the Order of Merit of New Zealand for her services to literature and New Zealand.
- Mahy lived at Governors Bay on the Banks Peninsula, Canterbury, in the South Island of New Zealand. She had been a solo mother and raised two daughters there.
- She often visited schools and libraries, sometimes in costume.
- In 1980, she became a full-time writer. She won numerous awards and honors for her contributions to children's literature, including the Carnegie Medal and the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award. She was the first writer from outside Britain to be awarded the Carnegie Medal.
- She studied at Auckland University College from 1952 to 1954 and Canterbury University College, graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in 1955. A solo mother of two, she attended the New Zealand Library School so she could work as a librarian during the day and write her stories at night.
- (On getting a tattoo at 62) My mother used to say, 'Never get a tattoo; you'll only be sorry. I thought I haven't got a lot of time to be sorry and it might be rather fun to have a pirate tattoo.
- Because reading widely as I did, I rapidly came to feel that everything worthwhile had already been written.
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