And of course, and naturally, Barney thinks the latter refers to himself, that he is dead or soon will be dead, so it indeed makes sense for me when Barney later learns that his great uncle for whom he is named has just died, that Barney's relief at not being destined to become a corpse makes him faint. In Margaret Mahy's 1982 Carnegie Medal winning middle grade novel The Haunting, for eight-year-old Barney (short for Barnaby), being 'haunted' begins with a strange feeling of disconnection and then seeing a shadowy figure materialise claiming that Barnaby (that Barney) is dead. On 29 April 2013, New Zealand’s top honour for children’s books was renamed the New Zealand Post Margaret Mahy Book of the Year award. In 2006 she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award (known as the Little Nobel Prize) in recognition of a 'lasting contribution to children's literature'. The Margaret Mahy Medal Award was established by the New Zealand Children's Book Foundation in 1991 to provide recognition of excellence in children's literature, publishing and literacy in New Zealand. In addition, some stories have been translated into Russian, Chinese and Icelandic.įor her contributions to children's literature she was made a member of the Order of New Zealand. Her novels have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Catalan and Afrikaans.

Among 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. There have 100 children's books, 40 novels, and 20 collections of her stories published. Her books The Haunting and The Changeover: A Supernatural Romance both received the Carnegie Medal of the British Library Association. While the plots of many of her books have strong supernatural elements, her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up. Margaret Mahy was a well-known New Zealand author of children's and young adult books.

The haunting by margaret mahy