Noela Young 1930-2018
"Her child figures are among the best ever drawn for an Australian picture book: leggy, cheeky, nonchalant, eager, vociferous - never resting." Maurice Saxby on Keep Out (1977) in The Proof of the Puddin' Australian Children's Literature 1970-1990, Sydney: Ashton Scholastic.
"We salute the achievements of this wonderful illustrator, whose pictures have delighted and inspired Australian children of several generations ... Here was such a meticulous artist, especially talented at depicting the outback, rural life and animals, but brilliantly observant too of the nuances of exchanged human glances (look again at Grandpa). She will be deeply missed, but her legacy lives on in many an illustrated page." Dr Robin Morrow in behalf of IBBY Australia
Last week one of our wonderful Australian children's book illustrators died. I knew her work best from the NSW School Magazine (in this ABC podcast you can hear Noela) and of course the Muddle-Headed Wombat but I also knew Noela had illustrated many more books so today I started digging.
Take a look inside this book because you will find examples of Noela's work from all her years illustrating the NSW School Magazine.
Many years ago I found a little book called John the mouse who learned to read (1969) and it was a story that made me smile. Imagine my surprise when I discovered today that Noela Young was the illustrator of this little gem.
If you have a copy of Magpies Magazine (Volume 31, issue 4, September 2016) you can read an excellent article by Karen Jameyson entitled Noela Young - Visual Magician.
Among her body of work I discovered Toby by Margaret Wild, Grandma Honeypot which is a book from my childhood and probably the oldest book in my school library and the covers of books by Emily Rodda, Patricia Wrightson and Duncan Ball.
The National Library of Australia cataogue has a comprehensive list of Noela's work.
Take a look in your school library for these treasures:
- The Muddle-headed wombat and sequels by Ruth Park
- Something Special by Emily Rodda
- The Best kept secret by Emily Rodda
- Pigs might fly by Emily Rodda
- Grandpa by Lilith Norman
- Keep out by Noela Young
- The Bilbies of Bliss by Margaret Wild
- Toby by Margaret Wild
- The Ghost and the gory story by Duncan Ball
- An older kind of Magic by Patricia Wrightson
- The problem Pony (Aussie Bites) by Sherryl Clark
By some amazing chance I kept three old copies of the NSW School Magazine from 1970. Here are some pages with Noela Young's illustrations.
4 comments:
I found Noela Young's work very influential as a child reading the "The School Magazine". While the rest of my life was in turmoil, I cherished those magazines and became lost in them. I marveled how just black and white could convey such shape (they were all b/w in my day) and I wanted to be an artist and learn how to do that too. That was when I was about 10. Only now after all these years I have been looking up those things that so strongly influenced me as a child, did I find the name Noela Young.
I'm so sad to learn that Noela died back in 2018. I knew she was a good age. I had morning tea with her some years ago and she was in her 80's then.
It was by special arrangement I met Noela. A friend and I were talking about our favourite illustrators. I happened to say mine was Noela Young. I added how thrilled I'd been when she illustrated one of my first stories published in School Magazine. I was over the moon because I recognised her illustrations straight away. I've been a primary school teacher and have always looked out for her illustrations.
When I went to primary school, back in 50's, I couldn't wait for School Magazine to arrive each month.
I admired the fact that the teachers honoured our love for the magazine by always allowing us time to drool over it and start colouring in the black and white illustrations and I continued that practice with my own classes.
Noela's illustrations seemed to be a mirror of parts of my life and I became a fan.
When I mentioned her name to my friend, she said that the name was familiar and she thought her cousin might know her.
I thought there's no way but it's a small world.
Between them they organised for us to get together.
I took two copies of the story she'd illustrated and she signed them.
The towards the end of the morning tea, when we were saying our goodbyes and hoping to meet again, Nola pulled out a very large envelope and handed it to me.
She was giving me the original cover paintings of my story for the school magazine.
I nearly cried. It was such a beautiful generous gesture, a mirror of Noela herself :)
Thank you for this. I have just written about Noela Young for Wikipedia and was excited and delighted to be able to hear her voice on the ABC podcast.
I’ll look forward to reading that. Lovely to hear that Noela had such an inspirational influence on you. I can understand that. I paint too. Cheers from a fellow Noela fan.
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