Mahy died at the Nurse Maude Hospice in St Albans, Christchurch on 23 July 2012, aged 76. In 2007, Mahy adopted a cavoodle puppy she named Honey, because of her colour. She was writing about a person being tattooed and considered the tattoo research to enable her to describe the experience convincingly.

At age 62, Mahy had her right shoulder tattooed with the picture of a skull with a rose in its teeth. She was a solo mother and raised two daughters there. Personal life įrom around 1965, Mahy lived at Governors Bay on the Banks Peninsula, Canterbury, in the South Island of New Zealand. In 1956 she trained at the New Zealand Library School, Wellington as a librarian. at Auckland University College (1952–1954) and Canterbury University College, graduating in 1955. She went to the local high school, where she was acknowledged as a talented swimmer. She showed it to her class to let them know that they could write stories at any age. Her first published story was 'Harry is Bad', written at age seven (published in the children's page of the Bay of Plenty Beacon). She was regarded as a 'slow learner', and particularly hated mathematics. Mahy's mother Helen Penlington was a teacher. Her father, Francis George Mahy, was a bridge builder and often told his children adventure stories which later influenced Mahy's writing. She was raised in her birthplace of Whakatane. Mahy was born in 1936, the eldest of five children. The Margaret Mahy Playground in the Christchurch Central City is named in her honour. In addition, some stories have been translated into Russian, Chinese and Icelandic. Her novels have been translated into Te Reo Māori, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Catalan and Afrikaans. Īmong her children's books, A Lion in the Meadow and The Seven Chinese Brothers and The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate are considered national classics. (As of 2012 just seven writers have won two Carnegies, none three.) She was also a highly commended runner up for Memory (1987). It recognises the year's best children's book by a British subject, and she won for both The Haunting (1982) and The Changeover (1984).

Mahy won the annual Carnegie Medal twice. At her death she was one of thirty writers to win the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Medal for her 'lasting contribution to children's literature'. She wrote more than 100 picture books, 40 novels and 20 collections of short stories. Many of her story plots have strong supernatural elements but her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up. Margaret Mahy ONZ (21 March 1936 – 23 July 2012) was a New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing

A Lion in the Meadow by Margaret Mahy