Two New Zealand authors have been nominated for the 2008 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award – Margaret Mahy and Joy Cowley. Last year’s winner was Australian author Sonya Hartnett.
The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award is worth 5,000,000 Swedish kronor (which isn’t far off $1,000,000 NZD) and is the world’s largest prize for children’s and young person’s literature. The winners will be announced in March 2009.
It got me thinking about what my favourite Margaret Mahy title is … and it’s a hard one to pick, but I think today’s answer would be The riddle of the frozen phantom. Tomorrow’s answer might indeed be A lion in the meadow. With so many titles to choose from, what’s your favourite?
18 November 2008 at 5:09 pm
“The great white man-eating shark: a cautionary tale” still makes me laugh everytime I read it.
19 November 2008 at 8:23 am
“17 Kings and 42 Elephants” of course! There was a time when I could easily recite it by heart and it was always hard to resist singing the story/poem when reading it to my children. Irresistible.
21 November 2008 at 11:24 am
Am going to have to hunt down a copy of “17 kings and 42 elephants”