Australian children’s author Patricia Wrightson died March 15 of natural causes at the age of 88.

She wove Aboriginal mythology into her writing, for which she has been both praised and criticized. She was awarded the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1986 for her body of work.

An Associated Press story said in recent years some have characterized her fiction as an exploitation and misappropriation of Aboriginal culture. Her publisher, Mark Macleod, said,”She was trying to create a kind of pan Australia – a whole new Australian mythology which was part non-indigenous and part indigenous.”

 [Via Michael Walsh.]