New Zealand has lost one of our favourite children's authors - Margaret Mahy died yesterday.

Margaret Mahy wrote more than 200 books and poems and won many prestigious children’s book awards, including the Carnegie Medal, and was the only New Zealander to receive the Hans Christian Andersen Award. Last year she won the New Zealand Post Children's Book of the Year award for The Moon & Farmer McPhee with Dunedin illustrator David Elliot. Mahy was made a member of the Order of New Zealand - the highest of the country’s honours and open to only 20 living people at one time - in 1993. Photo - NZ Herald RIP Margaret Mahy, you made our world a richer place with your wonderful imagination.