Maurice Gee 22 August 1931 – 12 June 2025

Maurice Gee was born in Whakatāne in 1931, educated at Auckland's Avondale College and at Auckland University where he earned a Masters degree in English. He worked as a teacher and librarian, before becoming a full-time writer. Gee wrote over 30 books for both children and adults. 

“In his writing Gee showed us, and by us, I am mostly speaking of Pākeha culture, who we were ... they were complex stories with an elegant, unfussy, but rich prose style.” Kate De Goldi

Here are some quotes from various newspapers after his death was announced:

• He wrote about ordinary people and ordinary lives, often with the narrator looking back at events that caused damage and unhappiness.
• Written in 1979, 'Under the Mountain' was probably his best-known children's work, and was later converted into a film and TV series.
• Gee wrote seriously for children: his worldbuilding is vibrant, startling, textured but it is also deeply enmeshed with the realities of oppressive and violent societies. Like the best children’s writers, Gee never underestimated his reader’s capacity to walk with him into these dangers and work out what was going on and what to learn from them.
• Like Margaret Mahy, Gee was one of the greatest writers New Zealand has ever had and he did not withhold that talent from young people. Gee’s body of literature is revelatory in that it expresses a pattern of invention and research across depths and genre, never subjugating one audience for the other, but oscillating between them, using them in different ways. This pattern revealed a great respect for children’s writing, and for children as serious readers, that is not always present in an industry that often sees writing for children as somehow a lesser pursuit.

I was reading our IBBY Australia newsletter and I discovered Maurice Gee died in June. His books had a huge impact on me and I regularly recommended several titles to my students over many decades. I was interested to discover these new covers - my library copies in the 1980s looked very different. 

The World Around the Corner 1980

When Caroline discovers an old pair of spectacles in her father's junk shop she has no idea how important they are. Even when she puts them on and sees things very differently, she doesn't guess that the safety of another world depends on them. In a race against time, Caroline has to tackle the ghastly Grimbles and keep her promise to return the spectacles to their rightful owner.

The Halfmen of O 1986

The first volume of Maurice Gee's acclaimed trilogy wherein Susan and Nick are transported to the terrifying land of O...

'Nick had seen the birthmark on Susan's wrist. It had two parts. Each was shaped like a tear drop, curved like a moon. One was bright red and the other golden brown.'

Susan had always been a bit odd and never really got on with her cousin Nick, but the mark on her wrist draws them together in a frightening adventure. They are summoned to the beautiful land of O in a last-ditch attempt to save the planet from cruel Otis Claw and his followers, the evil Halfmen, who have lost every trace of human goodness and kindness.

There is a scene in this book where the girl is fed by her captors - they cram a plastic-like substance down her throat - even now decades later I can still feel my horror when I read that scene.

The Priests of Ferris 1984 and Motherstone 1985

In the second volume of Maurice Gee’s acclaimed O Trilogy, Susan must stop terrible things being done in her name... Face the High Priest. Face him alone. That was why she was back on O. To end the religion grown up in her name. Susan Ferris and her cousin Nick return to the world of O, which they had saved from the evil Halfmen, only to discover that a hundred years have passed and O is now ruled by cruel and ruthless priests. Susan is inspired by the dreams and prophecies related to her to face the most dreadful dangers and free the inhabitants of O.

In the third novel of Maurice Gee’s acclaimed trilogy, Susan and Nick engage in a last desperate quest for O. 'King,' they said, trying out the word, 'Osro is King. 'Now, stand up,' Osro said. 'Take me to Susan's door. You are my hands and I am your head. Soon O will be ours.' For Susan and Nick the adventure at last seems at an end. They are leaving the magical land of O, the scene of The Halfmen of O and The Priests of Ferris. But even as they prepare to step back to Earth, strange and evil forces reach out to ensnare them. For Susan and for the Motherstone there is one final, frightening task.

The Fat Man 2008

I realise now this is really a YA novel. I did have it in my Primary school library but only recommended it to very mature readers. There are scenes with a bully in this book that haunt me all these years later. I talked about this in relation to another book back in 2010. 

Under the Mountain 1979

Beneath the extinct volcanoes surrounding the city, giant creatures are waking from a spellbound sleep that has lasted thousands of years. Their goal is the destruction of the world. Rachel and Theo Matheson are twins. Apart from having red hair, there is nothing remarkable about them - or so they think. They are horrified to discover that they have a strange and awesome destiny. Only the Matheson twins can save the world from the terror of what is under the mountain.

The twins are suspicious when the neighbours never open their blinds. They hear noises at night so they know someone lives there. The scene where they enter the house and climb down some stairs into the basement still gives me the shivers. 

Awards (select list)

• 1983: AIM Children's Book Awards Book of the Year for The Halfmen of O (1982)
• 1986: Esther Glen Award for Motherstone (1985)
• 1987: Honorary Doctorate of Literature from Victoria University of Wellington
• 1993: 1st Prize for Fiction at the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards for Going West (1993)
• 1995: Esther Glen Award for The Fat Man (1995)
• 1995: AIM Children's Book Awards Book of the Year for The Fat Man (1995)
• 1998: Deutz Medal for fiction at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards for Live Bodies (1998)
• 2002: Margaret Mahy Award for significant contributions to children's literature
• 2004: Gaelyn Gordon Award for Under the Mountain
• 2004: $60,000 Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement for fiction
• 2004: Honorary Doctorate of Literature from the University of Auckland
• 2006: Deutz Medal for Fiction at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards for Blindsight (2005)
• 2008: New Zealand Post Young Adult Fiction Award for Salt (2007)
• 2017: New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults Copyright Licensing NZ Award for Young Adult Fiction for The Severed Land (2017)

No Room for a Mouse by Kyle Mewburn illustrated by Freya Blackwood

My favourite parts of this book are the cross section illustrations of the huge house and the kindness of Christopher. It is not directly stated but clearly Mrs Fizzletum has become homeless even if the reasons are fanciful and fun:

"I gave my pot plants too much food. ... Now my house is a jungle, and a boa constrictor has swallowed my keys."

Similarly Melody Mistletoe and her family now live at the bus stop. 

"I forgot to turn the taps off in the bath. ... Now our house is an ocean, and there are oysters growing in our beds."

I also love the way everyone contributes to the house and mum finds delightful things such as freshly baked scones but she is so busy that she does not think to ask where they have come from. 

Book seller blurb: Christopher lived with his mum and his best friend, Sneaky, in a house with more rooms than Christopher could count. This charming story about Christopher, his mother and his mouse Sneaky will delight children of all ages. Christopher’s mother is so busy working for the pigeon post that she doesn’t notice when Christopher invites an amazing variety of people to share their enormous house. There’s Mrs Fizzletum, Melody Mistletoe and her family, Maestro Bambonium and his Grand Pandemonium, Ringmaster Fergus and the Sawdust Circus — so many people that there is no room for Sneaky!

This book is a new discovery for me even though it was published in 2007. I have previously talked about Freya Blackwood. Kyle Mewburn lives in New Zealand and is the author of many picture books. She won the Joy Cowley Award (presented by Storylines Children's Literature Foundation of New Zealand) in 2005 and won both the Picture Book Category and the Children's Choice Category with Kiss! Kiss! Yuck! Yuck! at the 2007 New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. No room for a mouse won a Storylines Notable Book Award in 2008.

When the orchestra move into the house it reminded me of another book by a New Zealand author - Margaret Mahy:

The Pumpkin Man and the Crafty Creeper

You might also be lucky and have a very old book by Bob Graham:

A Lion in the Meadow by Margaret Mahy illustrated by Jenny Williams

"Mother, I'm scared to go into the meadow, because of the lion which is there."

This is a famous Margaret Mahy book from 1969. I picked up a copy in mint condition at a recent charity book fair for just AUS$1. My copy is the newer one with revised illustrations done in 1986.

In this delightful children's story, a young boy's vivid imagination brings to life a lion that he claims is hiding in the meadow near his home. His mother, initially skeptical, plays along by giving him a matchbox containing a dragon to scare the lion away. As the tale unfolds, the line between fantasy and reality blurs, leading to a heartwarming conclusion where imagination and belief create a world of wonder and possibility, highlighting the power of storytelling and the bond between parent and child. The Greatest Books

Here are some of the original illustrations - I do prefer them:

Publisher blurb: What would you do if you knew there was a lion in the meadow, but your mother doesn't believe you? And when she gives you a matchbox with a dragon hidden inside to scare away the lion, you discover that the dragon is in there too!

Margaret Mahy (1936-2012) was one of New Zealand's most celebrated children's writers. She was the author of more than 150 titles, which have been translated into many different languages and sold around the world. Appointed to the Order of New Zealand in 1993, Mahy also won many global prizes for children's writers, including the Carnegie Medal and the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award from IBBY.

I wonder if A Lion in the Meadow inspired the book The Tiger who Came to Tea. Looking at the dates I guess not. The Tiger who came to Tea was written in 1968 and A Lion in the Meadow in 1969. I can see links between this book and another older book by Margaret Mahy - The Witch in the Cherry Tree also illustrated by Jenny Williams. I found an academic examination of the story in A Lion in the Meadow - the page is filled with advertisements making it hard to read but if you want a deeper analysis of this famous story take a look. I have also discovered that the new edition has a different ending! Juding by the dates I am going to hope or assume Margaret Mahy herself wrote or at least approved of this change.

Original "The mother never ever made up a story again."

New edition "So the lion in the meadow became a house lion and lived in the broom cupboard and when the little boy had apples, stories and a goodnight hug, the lion had apples, stories and a goodnight hug as well."

The Margaret Mahy Treasury

Here is a list of some picture books by Margaret Mahy - my own favourites are Jam; The Great White Man-eating Shark; and The Pumpkin Man and the Crafty Creeper. Click the label Margaret Mahy at the bottom of this post to find my blog posts about some of these.

•  A Dragon of an Ordinary Family (1969)
•  A Lion in the Meadow (1969)
•  The Princess and the Clown (1971)
•  The Boy with Two Shadows (1971)
•  17 Kings and 42 Elephants (1972)
•  The Witch in the Cherry Tree (1974)
•  The Boy Who Was Followed Home (1975)
•  The Man Whose Mother Was a Pirate (1976)
•  Jam (1985)
•  The Great White Man-eating Shark (1989)
•  The Pumpkin Man and the Crafty Creeper (1990)
•  The Rattlebang Picnic (1994)
•  Beaten by a Balloon (1997)
•  The Three-legged Cat (2004)
•  Down the Back of the Chair (2006)

  

Song of the River by Joy Cowley illustrated by Kimberly Andrews

Publisher blurb: In this resonant story from Joy Cowley, Cam the mountain boy follows the river from its trickling source in the snow all the way to the sea. The river leads him through forest, farms and towns to the salty wind of the sea. The dramatic landscapes are packed with detail to discover in the world of the river.

Cam lives in the mountains with his grandfather. He is curious and asks when can they see the sea. Cam sees a trickle of water and hears a voice calling:

"Come with me. Come with me. I will take you to the sea."

Cam follows the trickle and it leads to a creek then a stream and then the stream becomes a river flowing beside farm lands and leading to the port where Cam finally sees a beach and the sea.

"It was wild and beautiful ... and it went on forever."

These lines reminded me of the words by Margaret Mahy (also from New Zealand) from her book The Man whose Mother was a Pirate.

“The little man could only stare. He hadn’t dreamed of the BIGNESS of the sea. He hadn’t dreamed of the blueness of it. He hadn’t thought it would roll like kettledrums, and swish itself on to the beach. He opened his mouth and the drift and the dream of it, the weave and the wave of it, the fume and foam of it never left him again. At his feet the sea stroked the sand with soft little paws. Farther out, the great, graceful breakers moved like kings into court, trailing the peacock-patterned sea behind them.”

This book jumped off the library shelf for two, or maybe three reasons. Firstly I really like the cover and so I expected to like the illustrations. I have put two covers here - one is the hardcover and the other the more affordable paperback. Secondly, I recognised the name Joy Cowley (I recently talked about her new book Good Night Good Beach) and thirdly the library I visit each week has added Sustainable Development Goal stickers to the covers of their books and this one had Goal 6 - Clean water and Sanitation. This link will take you to my post about this exceptional resource created by my friend from Kinderbookswitheverything. And this second link will take you to Goal 6.

Check out this Pinterest of other books you could use to explore this goal

Song of the River is a book you should add to your school library collection. Why? It has lyrical language and a story that makes geography accessible (notice the maps on the end papers) and as I mentioned the illustrations are very appealing. Take a look at these phrases:

The water splashed and sand in the voice of snow.

The creek laughed down the mountainside and chattered over stones.

The river sang in the voice of green and gold frogs.

The river drank other rivers ...

Cowley neatly modulates Cam’s adventure, sentences that build and accrete like that rivulet taking readers on the journey. Andrews’ diverse landscapes are solidly composed, shifting angles but maintaining an earthy, muted palette. Kirkus

Companion books:

A River

The River

News from New Zealand

 

Image Source: Beck Wheeler

I live in Australia but New Zealand is our neighbor and so I do take an interest in their books and awards. It is terrific that our Magpies Magazine includes reviews and articles about New Zealand books each issue.

I have talked about The Lighthouse Princess in a previous post. It has now won 'Best First Book' in the 2023 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. The Lighthouse Princess, was also selected as the winner in the 2021 Storylines Gavin Bishop Award for Illustration.

Other winners are:

Picture book award

Duck Goes Meow (Juliette MacIver, illus by Carla Martell, Scholastic NZ)

Blurb: Woof! says Dog. Moo! says Cow. Cluck! says Hen, and Duck Goes ... Meow. 

A little yellow duckling is amongst animal friends who are all sure of the sounds they make: hiss, neigh, moo, cheep, cluck and oink. But when Duck goes ‘meow’, the other animals say no, that is wrong, 

try again ... then Duck’s mama arrives, and boy, do they get a surprise!

Esther Glen award for junior fiction 

Below (David Hill, Puffin)

Blurb: When Liam dares his classmate Imogen to come on a forbidden tour of the railway tunnel being drilled through a nearby mountain, he hopes she’ll quit protesting about it damaging the environment — his dad is an engineer working on the tunnel, after all. Just as they reach the huge tunnelling machine everything goes horribly wrong. When the rocks stop falling and the dust settles, they are trapped, kilometres below ground, in the dark. Water is trickling in and beginning to rise. And nobody knows where they are. Can they stop arguing and start working together to escape before time runs out?

Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize: Artists re-imagine The Witch in The Cherry Tree

Original book illustrated by Jenny Williams

To enter the prestigious prize, artists are given a Mahy book to interpret, and enter with a set of illustrations.

You probably already know, if you are a long-time reader of this blog, that I adore all books by the late New Zealand author and Hans Christian Andersen winner - Margaret Mahy.  I love that there is a competition to bring back her picture books with new illustrations - not that the originals were not wonderful but of course so many are now out of print.

The Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize is one of New Zealand’s pre-eminent illustration prizes, offering a unique opportunity for an unpublished New Zealand-based illustrator to illustrate Margaret Mahy’s classic stories. It was launched in 2019 to celebrate and honour the 50th Anniversary of Mahy’s A Lion in the Meadow.

In the Witch in the Cherry Tree (1974), David and his mum are making small cakes and it is the smell of the baking that lures a witch into the cherry tree. A few cakes are burnt and these are useful to throw at the witch. David knows the witch is dangerous but he can also see she wants some cake. In the original version quite oddly this book has a recipe for gingerbread in the back - I wonder if they included a recipe in the new edition? You can see the art of several of the illustrators who submitted entries for this award. 

Here is a part of an illustration by Jenny Williams and one from Jessica Twohill.

Here are a couple of text quotes:

"She perched there like a wicked black parrot and sniffed at the smell of baking."

"The witch pranced on the lawn with frenzy, fury and fiery wickedness."

Previous winners:

The Boy who made Things up

In my previous post I said "I wonder which book will feature for 2023 and beyond. If I could talk to the organisers of this illustration competition, I would loudly proclaim it should be The Pumpkin Man and the Very Crafty Creeper originally illustrated by Helen Craig. This story is such a joy to read aloud and it had sadly been out of print for too long!"

One more piece of New Zealand news. If you have not yet discovered Gecko Press take a few minutes to explore their website. I am very keen to see this new book for babies. It is in the form of a leporello.  

Blurb: A concertina board book of big bright faces to place around baby on the floor at tummy time—by multi-award-winning author/illustrator Gavin Bishop. Babies will love tummy time or learning to sit up surrounded by this beautiful two metre fold-out, wordless board book illustrating faces and toys in bright colors. This safe and sturdy concertina book is a perfect new baby or baby shower gift, with compelling illustrations of the things babies love. Friendly faces from the whole family combine with familiar toys and objects, drawn in bold lines with a striking minimalist color palette. Choose your cover and which direction to read this fully reversible book. Accordion-fold books are perfect for babies to strengthen core muscles at tummy time with the saturated colours, simple lines and open faces that babies are hard-wired to enjoy. As the baby grows the strong simple images are perfect for introducing first words and concepts, with family faces to name—including the dog—and objects that babies love to hold and explore—soft toys, ball, keys, an enticing pair of spectacles and more.

The Lighthouse Princess by Susan Wardell illustrated by Rose Northey

"The princess lived in a tower by the sea. She wasn't sad and she wasn't stuck."

Her tower home is a lighthouse. The princess loves to fish, collect shells, swim and make paper planes. 

"She wasn't even lonely ... Well maybe a little bit."

One day during a wild storm, she sees a young boy in a little boat and he is in danger. When she pulls him to the shore the boy, who has just been rescued, asks the princess - "Do you need rescuing from the tower?"

Are you thinking of Rapunzel? Does she need rescuing or is there another possible outcome for this new fairy tale? I am not going to spoil the story but I can say ...  And yes they both lived ...

Happily ever after

My wonderful "library" friend gave me this book for my birthday last week because she knows I LOVE lighthouses and I believe in fairy tales. This book was the most perfect present ever!

The Lighthouse Princess won The Storylines Gavin Bishop Award from New Zealand. Here is the web site for Rose Northey who is a performance poet. Susan Wardell is an anthropologist and also an poet. Here is an interview with Susan where she talks about writing this book. 

The Storylines Gavin Bishop Award was established in 2009. The award aims to encourage the publication of new and exciting high-quality picture books from new New Zealand illustrators. ... The award is open only to previously unpublished illustrators.

Take a close look at the cover of this book - I love the way it shows the confidence of the princess and the wild waves that surround her lighthouse. But the illustration below there is a hint about her wishes and dreams. 

Here are some versions of Rapunzel which you might like to explore.  I would also be tempted to revisit The Paperbag Princess and perhaps The Tough Princess along with lots of picture books about living in a lighthouse.

The Boy who Made Things Up by Margaret Mahy illustrated by Lily Emo

Luckily for Michael one day his dad's car breaks down. The pair of them have to walk and after a short while Michael begins to use his imagination and involve his father in a wonderful adventure. By the sixth double spread the father has put away his distracting mobile phone and now he can fully enter into their imaginative journey to the seaside which in reality is far from this place. They play on the beach, dive into the ocean, swim to an island, watch the colourful fish and even enjoy a delicious ice cream delivered by a man on a unicycle.  By the end of the day the father has learned a very important lesson about the importance of family and the intrusion of too much time spent working when he should be enjoying precious time with his son. 

Margaret Mahy sadly died in 2012 but I think it is so important that we all continue to read and share her wonderful and extremely diverse body of work. She wrote picture books, junior novels, short stories, poetry and amazing young adult titles.  In fact Margaret Mahy was awarded the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen medal in 2006 for her body of work.  My favourite picture books are Jam; The Great white Man-eating shark; Beaten by a Balloon; The Pumpkin Man and the Crafty Creeper; The Three-legged Cat; The Boy who was Followed home; and The Man whose Mother was a Pirate.

The Boy who Made Things up was written by Margaret Mahy in 1982 and first appeared in her story collection The Chewing Gum Rescue and Other Stories. I was excited to see one of these older books was illustrated by Jan Ormerod.

The Margaret Mahy Illustration Prize is one of New Zealand’s pre-eminent illustration prizes, offering a unique opportunity for an unpublished New Zealand-based illustrator to illustrate Margaret Mahy’s classic stories. It was launched in 2019 to celebrate and honour the 50th Anniversary of Mahy’s A Lion in the Meadow.

Previous winners

2021 There's a King in the Cupboard illustrated by Minrui Yang

2020 The Boy who Made Things up illustrated by Lily Emo

2019 The Boy With Two Shadows illustrated by Sarah Greig (Originally illustrated by Jenny Williams 1971)

In 2022 the book will be The Witch in the Cherry Tree (1974). Here is the original edition:

I wonder which book will feature for 2023 and beyond. If I could talk to the organisers of this illustration competition I would loudly proclaim it should be The Pumpkin Man and the Very Crafty Creeper originally illustrated by Helen Craig. This story is such a joy to read aloud and it had sadly been out of print for too long!