Unfortunately children’s literature in a country with a population of only three million
people is particularly vulnerable to economic fluctuations. The Great Depression of the
1930s, followed closely by six years of war severely affected the publication of books for
children. Not only were few published locally or imported from overseas, but the body of
literature which had gradually been accumulating was not kept in print and was
consequently forgotten.
The result of more than a decade of neglect was a re-awakening in the 1950s to the
fact that there were few local books for children and there was an immediate stampede
to produce some. Oblivious of the Edith Howes stories of the 1920s, authors such as
Avis Acres produced similar “flower fairy’ picture books to tell children about local flora
and fauna, and by the 1960s there was a rash of photographic books to tell New Zealand
children about their country, with an abundance of titles such as Kuma is a Maori Girl
(1961) by Pat Lawson, or David, Boy of the High Country (1964) by David Kohlap.
The desire to develop a strong New Zealand identity, separate from the British, also
saw a return to the preoccupation with the land itself, a preoccupation which is never
far below the surface of New Zealand literature. The early settlers had marvelled at the
strangeness of the forested mountainous country where rivers flooded, volcanoes
erupted and daily routines could be disrupted by earthquakes, but they met its
challenges by cutting down trees and trying to tame unruly nature into something like
the benign English landscape. The challenge of the land in the 1960s, however, was met
in adventure stories whose protagonists were lost in the bush (forest), nearly drowned in
floods or cut off in inaccessible mountains by massive land slips resulting from
earthquakes. During their adventures they were likely to encounter smugglers who were
attempting illegally to export either Maori artefacts or rare and endangered animal
species. Both Phyl Wardell, in novels such as Hazard Island (1976), and Joan de Hamel
in X Marks the Spot (1973), show a strong sense of conservation as their characters foil
the theft of paua shell in the former and smugglers of the rare kakapo parrot in the
latter.
The 1960s and 1970s also saw a return to the “early settler’ theme, but now the
emphasis was upon less wealthy immigrants to New Zealand who were having to make
their way in a harsh and uncaring society. Elsie Locke in The Runaway Settlers (1965)
and Ruth Dallas in The Children in the Bush (1969) both depict women left on their own
to be the sole support of their families, while in Green Gold (1976) and its sequels, Eve
Sutton described how young immigrant boys had to make their way alone in the tough
conditions of early nineteenth century Auckland.
The 1960s and 1970s, with their emphasis on establishing a New Zealand identity,
were not encouraging to writers of fantasy, who failed to conform to the prevailing
contemporary ethos. So it was that when a young librarian, Margaret Mahy, submitted
her stories of archetypal witches, wizards and dragons to local publishers they were
rejected as being “too English’. Fortunately the School Journal, a publication funded by
the Department of Education and distributed free of charge to all schools, did publish
her stories, and when the Journals were exhibited in the USA they were noticed by an
editor of the Franklin Watts publishing house. Joint publication with Dents of Britain
was arranged and in 1969 five picture books appeared, illustrated by leading artists.
They were an instant success and since then Margaret Mahy has received numerous
846 THE WORLD OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE