Selina Young

Selina Young (d. 2006) was best known in New Zealand for her illustrations of Margaret Mahy's A Summery Saturday Morning.  Young, who also wrote and illustrated her own stories, produced 31 books, many of them for the European market. Mahy said Young was an 'elegant illustrator' with whom she had always felt a strong affinity. 'What was significant for me was the book we did was the first one illustrated by someone who understood the place where I lived in Governors Bay,' Mahy said. 'Previously, I had British illustrators because when I started writing there were not many illustrators in New Zealand.' The pair had walked around the coast, and Mahy said Young had incorporated the things they saw into the book. 'It is a book where the text and the pictures have a particular unity that none of my other books have,' she said. While Young was better known in Britain, where most of her books were published, her father, Eoin Young, a motor-racing journalist and writer, said the family had come to New Zealand every year for the motor racing. Her godparents were Patty McLaren, wife of racing driver Bruce McLaren, and Denis Hulme. Young said his daughter had always been fascinated by drawing, and her first book in 1991 had won the MacMillan Prize for children's book illustration. She moved to New Zealand ten years ago, married and had one child. Sourced from Kristi Gray’s Obituary, Stuff website, 10 Feb 2006. An exhibition of her illustrations was held in Christchurch in February, 2007 to establish a trust fund for her young son.

Selected bibliography:

• First Poems compiled by Julia Eccleshare (Orchard / Peter Bedrick 1993).
• We're Not Tired (Mammoth 1994).
• First Rhymes text by Lucy Coats (Orchard 1994).
• Big Dog and Little Dog Visit the Moon (Heinemann 1996).
• A Summery Saturday Moon text by Margaret Mahy (Hamish Hamilton 1998).
• Big Dog and Little Dog Go Sailing (Mammoth 2000).
• Noisy Dog (Scholastic 2001).
• The Story House text by Vivian French (Orion 2004).
• Once Upon a Ride text by Tony Mitton (David Fickling 2005).
• All About Me: A Hundred Things that Happened to Me Between 0 and 3 (Orion 2005).
• Big Dog and Little Dog Go Flying (Egmont 2006).