Cassia Joy Cowley is a New Zealand language and reading specialist. She was born on August 7, 1936, in Levin, New Zealand. She has written more than 500 books for beginning readers, many of which have been honored internationally. The Cheese Trap won the AIM Children's Book Award for Best Picture Book (1996) and Red-Eyed Tree Frog won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Best Picture Book (1999). She has won New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards for Best Junior Fiction for Ticket to the Sky Dance (1998) and Starbright and the Dream Eater (1999). The Mouse Bride (1998) is being produced as an animated program for New Zealand television. In 2002, Cowley was awarded the Roberta Long Medal, presented by the University of Alabama at Birmingham for culturally diverse children's literature. In 2004, she was awarded the A. W. Reed Award for Contribution to New Zealand Literature, and in 2010, she won the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in the Fiction category. She is also a 2016 Astrid Lindgren award nominee. In 2018 she will be awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit and also shortlisted for The Hans Christian Andersen Award. She was also awarded the Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award for her her title Nicketty-Nacketty, Noo-Noo-Noo in 2018. She was awarded the 2018 Order of New Zealand, which recognises outstanding service to the state and people of the country.
