Wednesday, March 13, 2013

News from Storylines - children's book first published 30 years ago honoured


 How Maui Slowed the Sun wins prestigious Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award.

How Maui Slowed the Sun by Peter Gossage was first published in 1983. This April its longevity and place in the canon of well-loved New Zealand Children’s Literature will be celebrated when it is awarded the Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award for a much-loved book.
How Maui Slowed the Sun by Peter Gossage. The Maui series by Peter Gossage, and in particular, How Maui Slowed the Sun (now published by Puffin, New Zealand), is one of the staples of library and home bookshelves around New Zealand. Gossage retells the traditional tales of Maui the trickster with economic and expressive language and bold, graphic illustrations that create a powerful mythological landscape. With sales of the Maui books in the tens of thousands, Gossage is surely one of New Zealand’s most widely read storytellers of Maori legends.

Peter Gossage is a graphic designer and artist who has worked in commercial and creative artistic fields for more than forty years. His first job on leaving school was at an advertising agency and he later worked as a display artist at the Auckland War Memorial Museum and as a graphic and scenic artist at TV2. When his drawings of Maori motifs on a television commercial drew interest from a publisher in the 1970s, he went on to write and illustrate his famous Maui series. Gossage now lives in Auckland and is the author and illustrator of more than 20 titles.

The Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award was established in 1999 to honour the memory and contribution to children’s literature of teacher and writer the late Gaelyn Gordon. The award is made annually for a work of fiction seen by Storylines as one which has stood the test of time and which is recognised as a successful, enduring children’s book. The award is for a book by a living author that is still in print and that has not won a major New Zealand award.

Dr Libby Limbrick, chair of Storylines Children’s Literature Charitable Trust commented that, ‘Storylines is delighted to have the Gaelyn Gordon Award to recognise books that are enduring children’s classics in New Zealand. Most books only have the chance to receive this sort of recognition at the time of publication and it is so important to acknowledge the success of books like How Maui Slowed the Sun, which has now influenced generations of New Zealand children.’

Remember, this is just one of the awards to be acknowledged and celebrated at the Storylines Margaret Mahy Day on 6 April. Book your tickets now.

Also among the awards presented, are those for unpublished manuscripts:

The shortlist for the Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon Award is:
  • ‘The Pirate, the Prophet and the Truth’ by Brydie Bain
  • ‘The Keeper of Spirit Hill’ by Juliet Jacka
  • ‘The Night of the Perigee Moon” by Juliet Jacka   
The shortlist for the Storylines Joy Cowley Award is:
  • ‘The Grub-a-lub’ by Morganne Collier
  • ‘The Rubbish Bin Cat’ by Jennifer Healey
  • ‘Big Blue Eye’ by Sharyn Jones
  • ‘Metal Fred’ by Sabrina Malcolm
  • ‘The Origami Door’ by Sabrina Malcolm
  • ‘I Can’t Imagine How it Happened’ by Aimee McNaughton
  • ‘The Animals’ World Cup’ by Heidi Poimatagi  

1 comment:

The Equation book said...

This book is such a cute story for any child. I loved it when I was in school and I bought it for my children.