Sally Murphy’s ‘Meet Mary MacKillop’ tells the story of Australia’s only Catholic Saint as she sets up her first school in 1866 at Penola in South Australia. A life rife with religious controversy, ‘Meet… Mary MacKillop’ bypasses the heaviest of this context to ground Mary’s story in her humane dedication to the education of children, especially those from poor families and in remote areas of Australia. However, it does not sanitise her life either, depicting any societal upheaval she caused as inconsequential to the positive effect she had on the children she helped.
With the aid of Sonia Martinez’s portrayal of a traditional and struggling 19th Century outback in stark browns and muted blues and greens, Sally Murphy clearly communicates Mary’s motivation and determination to fight as hard as she could for rural children to be educated. Therefore, creating a sense of who Mary was as a person during a time when her simple humanitarian hopes clashed with long established social conventions.
Sonia Martinez used old photographs and even Google maps to get a sense of the town and the landscape. The original schoolhouse in Penola is still standing providing an accurate starting point. The illustrations were sketched, scanned then completed in Photoshop.
Sally Murphy is a prolific Australian children’s author and poet who was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2022, won the Children’s Book category in The Indie Awards, and has been shortlisted for CBCA’s Children’s Book of the Year, and the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award. Sonia Martinez is an illustrator and graphic designer whose work incorporates different styles and media. Her awards include being shortlisted for the Western Australian Young Readers Award, the Children’s Book Council of Australia Picture Books, and the Children’s Book Council of Australia Crichton Award for New Illustrators.
‘Meet…’ series
Picture Books for Older Readers
