Helen May, now an emeritus professor, is a former Dean of the University of Otago College of Education. She began her career as a primary school teacher in the mid-1960s, worked in childcare in the 1970s, and began tertiary teaching in the 1980s. During the early 1990s she worked with Margaret Carr on the development of Te Whāriki, New Zealand’s first national curriculum for early childhood education. In 1995 she was appointed to the first New Zealand professorial chair in Early Childhood Education at Victoria University Wellington and in 2005 she shifted to the University of Otago. She has published nine books as sole author on the history and policy of early years education."

"Politics in the Playground is a most readable, well-researched and engrossing text. This could well provide an informative background learning opportunity to early childhood providers and training students, in fact I would recommend it as required reading for anyone interested in any aspect of education in New Zealand." -- Good Teacher, 2009

"Helen May has done more than any one person to sew together events and memories into the backstory so necessary for the early childhood sector's self identity ... As a whole, Politics in the Playground is still the book that defines the historic politicking in and around ECE. It's good to see the updated version covering the years of relative warmth from central government." -- Early Education, Volume 45, Autumn/Winter 2009