Stacy Gregg won the 2024 Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award for Nine Girls. Photo: supplied
A best selling author in New Zealand and overseas has clinched the ultimate prize at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.
Stacy Gregg won the 2024 Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award on Wednesday night for her novel Nine Girls. The book - set in the tumultuous 1970s and 1980s - draws from Gregg's own childhood in Ngāruawāhia. It follows main character Titch on her search for buried treasure that doubles as a journey into Maori heritage.
Nine Girls knits together history and fantasy with a dose of comedy. It is a change for Gregg, who is known for weaving her love of horses into her writing - including the Pony Club Secrets series, which has sold millions of copies worldwide.
Judges for the awards called Nine Girls "a taonga from a masterful storyteller".
"Vivid and well-developed characters populate a fast-paced, eventful narrative as we follow the young protagonist's journey to discovering her Māori identity," the judges said in a joint statement. "Te ao Pākehā and te ao Māori are equally uplifted as the text explores our bicultural history."
In a RNZ review of Nine Girls following its March, Joanna Ludbrook from Chicken and Frog Bookshop, called the novel a "New Zealand classic that should be in every home, classroom and library".
Nani Jo celerbrates grandmothers. Photo: supplied
Numerous other authors picked up accolades at the awards ceremony. Michaela Keeble won the Picture Book Award for Paku Manu Ariki Whakatakapōkai. The story follow a curious boy with "questions about growing up, belonging, spirituality, culture and who is the boss".
The Young Adult Fiction Award went to Eileen Merriman for Catch a Falling Star, which chronicles a teenager balancing a quest for stardom with escalating mental health issues.
Patu: The New Zealand Wars won the Russell Clark Award for Illustration. Photo: supplied
Author Steve Mushin took out the Elsie Locke Award for Non-Fiction award for Ultrawild: An Audacious Plan to Rewild Every City on Earth. The story connects creativity and science to find a way to stop climate change.
Gavin Bishop's large format history book Patu: The New Zealand Wars won the Russell Clark Award for Illustration.
Author Moira Wairama and illustrator Margaret Tolland picked up the Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award for a celebration of grandmothers in Nani Jo me ngā Mokopuna Porohīanga.
Ned Wenlock's graphic novel Tsunami took out the NZSA Best First Book Award.