It’s the birthday of internationally acclaimed children’s book author Margaret Mahy, born in 1936 in Whakatane, New Zealand. Mahy wrote over 150 books, from picture books like The Lion in the Meadow (1969) to young adult novels like The Haunting (1982), which won Mahy the coveted Carnegie Medal—the first time the Carnegie was awarded to an author outside Britain. Mahy’s work tends toward the whimsical and fantastic and often contains supernatural elements.

Mahy, the oldest of six children, was a child who liked to talk to herself. She wanted to be a writer from the age of seven. She studied English at Auckland University College and Canterbury University College, getting her B.A. in 1955, then attended the New Zealand Library School and became a librarian. She had piles of unpublished manuscripts when she was discovered in 1969 by an American publisher, Helen Hoke Watts, who saw one of her stories in a magazine. The two met, and Watts’ company, Franklin Watts, went on a publishing frenzy, putting out six of Mahy’s books that first year alone.

She began writing full time in 1980, winning the first Carnegie in 1982 and another in 1984 for The Changeover. In 2006 she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award, considered the greatest honor a children’s book author or illustrator can receive. (Not trying to start trouble with the Caldecott folks here. By the way, Randolph Caldecott’s birthday is tomorrow. I digress.) But I’ll tell you the greatest honor a children’s book author can receive: having an award named after her. Mahy has two: the cleverly named Margaret Mahy Award for significant contributions to children’s lit, and the New Zealand Post Margaret Mahy Book of the Year award. You get the feeling they’re proud of her over in New Zealand.

Mahy raised two daughters alone (she never married) and often donned a crazy rainbow wig while reading aloud to children at local schools. At 62, she got a skull tattoo on her shoulder while researching a character. Mahy died of cancer in 2012 in Christchurch, New Zealand.

One of the funniest children’s books written in verse I’ve ever read to my child is Mahy’s picture book, Bubble Trouble (2009), told in a rollicking rhythm that flings the reader headlong through the story. It begins:

“Little Mabel blew a bubble, and it caused a lot of trouble…

Such a lot of bubble trouble in a bibble-bobble way.

For it broke away from Mabel as it bobbed across the table,

where it bobbled over Baby, and it wafted him away.”

Have a whimsical Wednesday and stay scrupulously honest to the data.