Stacy Gregg (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Pūkeko, Ngāti Maru Hauraki) is the winner of the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year 2024 for her novel Nine girls, based in Ngaruawahia.

The New Zealand Book Awards for children and young adults were presented at a ceremony at Pipitea Marae in Wellington.

Judge described Nine girls as “a taonga from a master storyteller”.

Gregg is one of Aotearoa’s most successful authors; her Pony series has sold millions of copies worldwide. Nine girls is the first time she has explored “Te ao Māori” in writing a coming-of-age story from her own childhood.

She said she was shocked by her victory and that winning the top award felt like a tribute to her tupuna and whānau.

The title comes from the acronym “Nine girls walk under a wharf and here I am,” which spells Ngāruawāhia. However, the saying has been lost for a generation, she said. She went back to her old high school and the kids didn’t know it.

She said the novel was about what it was like growing up in her family and also touched on themes such as colonisation, the Tainui Wars and raupatu (the dispossession of Māori land in the 19th century and after).

“I just felt like nobody had captured small-town life in New Zealand in the 1970s and 1980s, when there was so much going on, when we had the best race relations in the world, only that was never really the case,” Gregg said.

However, Gregg writes middle school fiction and still wants the novel to be an “epic Pakiwaitara”, so it’s about a search for gold that her grandmother always said was buried by Taupiri Maunga on her farm, and also about a talking eel.

When writing the book, she said she had trouble channeling her tupuna, she felt too respectful and the book wasn’t working. Suddenly her tupuna appeared in the form of the eel and after that everything fell into place.

Chair of the 2024 Jury, Maia Bennett (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Tūwharetoa), said: “After careful deliberation, both juries reached a unanimous decision for a book that not only embodies the highest standards but, in our opinion, will make a lasting contribution to Aotearoa’s national children’s and young adult literature and as such deserves to be recognised as the main winner.”

“Vivid and well-developed characters populate a fast-paced, eventful narrative as we follow the young protagonist’s journey to discovering her Māori identity. Te ao Pākehā and te ao Māori are equally uplifting as the text explores our bicultural history,” she said.

The full list of winners of the 2024 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults:

Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award, $8,500

Nine girls, Stacy Gregg (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Pūkeko, Ngāti Maru Hauraki) (Penguin Random House NZ)

Picture book price 8500 US dollars

Paku Manu Ariki Whakatakapōkai, Michaela Keeble, illustrated by Tokerau Brown (Gecko Press)

Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction, $8,500

Nine girls, Stacy Gregg (Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Pūkeko, Ngāti Maru Hauraki) (Penguin Random House NZ)

Prize for young adult literature: $8,500

Catch a falling star, Eileen Merriman (Penguin Random House NZ)

Elsie Locke Award for Nonfiction $8,500

Ultrawild: A bold plan to rewild all the world’s cities, Steve Mushin (Allen & Unwin)

Russell Clark Award for Illustration, $8,500

Patu: The New Zealand Wars, illustrated by Gavin Bishop (Tainui, Ngāti Awa) (Penguin Random House NZ)

Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Prize for Te Reo Māori, $8,500

Nani Jo me ngā Mokopuna Porohīanga, Moira Wairama, illustrated by Margaret Tolland (Baggage Books)

NZSA Prize for Best First Novel, $2,500

tsunami, Ned Wenlock (Earth’s End Publishing)