Multicultural Children's Literature
A 10-month Author Study
September: The Pinkney Family
Photo from USA Today
Our first author(s) of the month are the Pinkney family. Jerry, Gloria Jean, Brian, and Andrea Davis Pinkney are a family of children's book authors and illustrators who together have written and illustrated over 175 books. Jerry Pinkney was born in Philadelphia. As a child, Jerry was a struggling reader, but loved to draw and paint. As a young man he worked creating greeting cards before he began illustrating books. He is known for his watercolor paintings, and a careful reader can find Jerry himself painted into many of his stories. Today he has written and illustrated more than 100 books. He has won 5 Coretta Scott King awards and 5 Caldecott Medals, most recently in 2010 for his The Lion and the Mouse. Jerry married his highschool sweetheart Gloria Jean Pinkney, who writes many of the books that he illustrates. The two have a son, Brian Pinkney, who grew up wanting to be an illustrator as well. Brian is married to Andrea Davis Pinkney; once a magazine editor, Andrea began writing books for children at Brian's encouragement. She has written many stories about African American history as well as biographies of famous African Africans.
Jerry Pinkney describes the illustrating process for his award winning The Lion and the Mouse.
video from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
We begin the year in kindergarten learning basic concepts about print, including a book's author and illustrator and their respective roles. The students are excited to recognize the "Pinkney" name on many of the books that we read as a class and to realize that as they write and draw, they too are authors and illustrators. Below are a few of the class's favorite Pinkney books.
The Lion and the Mouse
2009 Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, New York
Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
image from Daily Motion
Back Home
1999 Penguin, New York
Written by Gloria Jean Pinkney
Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
image from Penguin
Alvin Ailey
1995 Reading Rainbow Books, New York
Written by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Illustrated by Brian Pinkney
image from Scholstic.com
The Little Red Hen
2006 Penguin, New York
Written and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
image from Scholstic.com
Max Found Two Sticks
1997 Aladdin Books, New York
Written and illustrated by Brian Pinkney
image from Scholstic.com
Pretty Brown Face
1997 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York
Written by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Illustrated by Brian Pinkney
image from Scholstic.com
Wonderful Books by the Pinkney Family
The Lion and the Mouse is a word-less picture book that, through Pinkney's illustrations, retells Aesop's famous fable. My students loved this story and enjoyed retelling it for themselves. See the lesson plan below for a fun activity teaching this book to children; after we wrote words of our own to the story, the class wanted to hear it read again and again! This is also an excellent book for teaching about fables: stories about animals that are meant to teach us a lesson. I used the same activity with another excellent wordless picture book by Jerry Pinkney, The Tortoise and the Hare.
Gloria Jean Pinkney's Back Home is the story of Ernestine, a young girl from the city who takes a train trip back home to visit family in rural North Carolina. The students were excited by the anticipation of the trip and fascinated by the Ernstine's experience at the train station and on the train. They connected with the story and were eager to share their experiences traveling and visiting family.
Alvin Ailey follows the dancer from his life as a young child to the foundation of his famous dance company. I had thought that the language in this book would be difficult for the kindergarteners, but they were very interested in the story about Ailey's life as well as Brian Pinkney's illustrations. This was a useful book for teaching about biographies - true stories about a person's life. Some of the students seemed confused by the idea that the man in the story was a real person, so I showed them pictures of the real Alvin Ailey and they were excited to find that he was real after all!
Jerry Pinkney writes and illustrates many fables but this one, along with The Lion and the Mouse, was a clear favorite. The Little Red Hen tells the story of a hardworking hen who can't seem to get any help from the other farm animals. The students were very vocal in sharing their opinions about the story - they had some choice words for the lazy farm animals! Fun fact: Jerry Pinkney also appears in this book! he's painted himself as the miller who grinds the flour for the hen.
Max Found Two Sticks tells the story of a young boy drumming on objects he finds on his block with two wooden sticks. Brian Pinkney describes the sights and sounds of the street in an exciting way, and the students enjoyed trying to imitate Max's rythms.
Pretty Brown Face is part of a series of board books by Andrea and Brian Pinkney. It's short and simple, but the students liked that they could help me read it (it contains many of the kindergarten sight words they are practicing). The book is a dialogue between a father and son as they point out eachothers facial features. The last page of the book is mirror for the students to see their own beautiful faces in; the students dod some thinking about their own facial features and drew self-portraits.