Beloved British Australian writer Shirley Barber has died, aged 88. The best-selling author published more than 30 original picture books about fairies and mermaids, including cult favourites “Tooth Fairy”, “The Mermaid Princess” and “The Enchanted Woods”.
Barber illustrated all her books, and garnered a large global fan base with her books being translated into 18 languages, including Bulgarian, Estonian and French. Her books and spinoff calendars and diaries have sold more than 10 million copies since she began producing them more than two decades ago.
On Tuesday, her publisher, Brolly Publishing, released a statement announcing that Barber had died peacefully in her sleep earlier that day.
The statement described her books as “rich detail, animated characters” with “strong visual narratives,” and stories that teach “gentle messages of kindness, caring, friendship, and peace, never overstated but simply conveyed by the characters in her stories and their actions.”
Barber’s first book, Martha B. Rabbit: the Fairies’ Cook, was published in 1988, when she was in her mid-fifties. According to her publisher, she had written the book as a child and made a little prototype of the book herself with red ribbon tie attached.
The book went on to win first prize at the Critica Erba Awards at the Bologna Children’s Fair in 1989.
Her books inspired hundreds of spin-off products, including colouring books, jigsaws, dinnerware, clothing, stickers, and bedding — featuring images of fairies, bunnies, mermaids, and other character’s from the books.
Barber was born on the Channel Islands in 1935, emigrating to Victoria in the mid-1960s.
In 2008, she gave a rare interview for The Age, reflecting on her own work.
“I have always felt that it’s really, really important for children to have a world to escape into,” she said, otherwise they might lead children “to go wrong later, and do dreadful things”.
“I had very vivid dreams and nightmares as a child. I found it difficult to tell the difference between a dream and what was real.”
“I think some people perceive energies which they actually see as fairies and elves.”
As a child, Barber said she saw fairies go by in her window.
“I didn’t go off to sleep easily and I thought I saw in the twilight this flight of fairies . . .”