Pinkney, Jerry (1939-2021), was an acclaimed illustrator and writer of children’s books. Over the course of his career, he won a number of prestigious awards for his work.
Pinkney won the 2010 Caldecott Medal for The Lion and the Mouse (2009). The Caldecott Medal is awarded annually to the illustrator of the most distinguished picture book for children published in the United States. The winning book is Pinkney’s adaptation of a famous Aesop’s fable. In his version, Pinkney retold The Lion and the Mouse entirely in pictures, using water colors and colored pencils
Pinkney also won a number of Coretta Scott King Awards. The award goes to an African American illustrator of outstanding books that portray the Black experience for young readers. Pinkney won the 1986 award for The Patchwork Quilt (1985); the 1987 award for Half a Moon and One Whole Star (1986); the 1989 award for Mirandy and Brother Wind (1988); the 1997 award for Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman (1996); and the 2002 award for Goin’ Someplace Special (2001). He also won the 2016 Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. Pinkney received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award (now called the Children’s Literature Legacy Award) in 2016. The award honors an author or illustrator whose books, published in the United States, have made an important contribution to literature for children.
Pinkney illustrated dozens of books. Some of them are by noted African American authors. These authors include Virginia Hamilton, Zora Neale Hurston, Julius Lester, and Mildred D. Taylor, as well as Pinkney’s wife, Gloria Jean Pinkney. In 2019, Pinkney illustrated A Place to Land, in which the American author Barry Wittenstein describes the story of teamwork and inspiration behind the words of the famous “I Have a Dream” speech that the American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., gave on Aug. 28, 1963.
Pinkney retold and illustrated several fairy tales, fables, and legends, including The Little Red Hen (2006), Little Red Riding Hood (2007), Puss in Boots (2012), The Tortoise & the Hare (2013), and The Little Mermaid (2020). He also designed postage stamps.
Pinkney was born on Dec. 22, 1939, in Philadelphia. He attended the Philadelphia Museum College of Art (now the University of the Arts) from 1957 to 1959. Pinkney began his career by illustrating The Adventures of Spider: West African Folk Tales (1964). He died on Oct. 20, 2021. After his death, a memoir in the form of a picture book, Just Jerry: How Drawing Shaped My Life, was published in 2023. Jerry Brian Pinkney, Jerry Pinkney’s son, is also an award-winning children’s illustrator.
