The Great White Man-Eating Shark is the $2.40 stamp! With Norvin, the boy who looked like a shark rampaging across it. Norvin also got major billing on the First Day Cover envelope. Needless to say I am pleased and proud. Margaret sadly died last year, and the New Zealand post office are issuing a set of commemorative stamps to recognise her genius and her importance to Children’s Books and to New Zealand and World literature. I mention this because I got a nice package in the post today. They met with approval from her and from Margaret, and that was how ‘The Great White Man Eating Shark’ came about. I liked the idea of making a boy look like a shark, that was right up my street, so I played around with it, did some drawings and sent them off to Vanessa. I wasn’t really sure about it at first but I didn’t really know what does or doesn’t make a good picture book as I was just starting out pretty much fresh from Art School. It was about a boy who looked like a shark. It sounded like it might have been about to be shelved. Both she and Margaret weren’t sure that the story would work as a picture book and wondered what I could make of it as it seemed rather repetitive and bit strange. Dent and had published my first picture book not long before. Her agent at the time, the late Vanessa Hamilton, was at J.M. Many years ago I was given the job of illustrating a story Margaret Mahy had written.
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