In 2005 her book The Other Ark won the Children’s Choice Award at the New Zealand Post Book Awards.

In 1997, Dodd was the screenwriter for a TV series based on the Hairy Maclary series featuring 10 five-minute episodes narrated by Miranda Harcourt. The first, third, fourth and sixth of these all won the New Zealand Children's Picture Book of the Year Award the second and fifth were shortlisted but did not win. It was followed by Hairy Maclary’s Bone (1984), Hairy Maclary Scattercat (1985), Hairy Maclary's Caterwaul Caper (1987), Hairy Maclary's Rumpus at the Vet (1989) and Hairy Maclary's Showbusiness (1991). In 1983 the first book in her Hairy Maclary series, Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy, was published. Her first book written solo was The Nickle Nackle Tree (1976). Her first book was My Cat Likes To Hide In Boxes, published in 1974, which she wrote along with Eve Sutton. After their marriage she began to work as a freelance illustrator. While there she met her husband Tony he died in 2014 after an illness. Dodd graduated from the Elam School of Art in Auckland with a diploma in Fine Arts, and became an art teacher spending five years teaching at Queen Margaret College in Wellington. She was educated at Iwitahi School and Tauranga College. She was an only child and lived with her parents in Kaingaroa Forest, near Taupo. Sculpture of Hairy Maclary and other characters from the books in Tauranga, New Zealand on the waterfront.ĭodd was born in Rotorua in 1941.

The life and art of lynley dodd