[ Music ]
>> Narrator: In memory of
Dick Robinson and sponsored
by the Institute of Museum
and Library Services.
>> Guy Lamolinara: Good
afternoon, I'm Guy Lamolinara,
and I'm from the Literary
Initiatives Division
of the Library of Congress, and
I'm thrilled to be here today
with Jerry Pinkney, who is
the Caldecott-winning artist
and writer of the new
book, The Little Mermaid.
Welcome, Jerry.
>> Jerry Pinkney:
Well, thank you.
Thank you.
My pleasure to be here today.
>> Guy Lamolinara: And I
should say welcome back,
because you've done been to
several of our book festivals,
as have members of your family.
So, it's always a privilege
and an honor to have you.
>> Jerry Pinkney: Yeah, and
I'll tell you something,
this is always very
special to me,
and I can't tell you
how I look forward
to just having a conversation
with young readers for sure.
>> Guy Lamolinara: I'm
looking forward to it, too,
and I'll tell our
audience the premise
for this event is I will
start with the questions,
but we're hoping we get many,
many questions from
our audience.
So, if you're in the
audience, please start typing
in your questions, and we'll get
to as many of them as we can.
As I said, Jerry's new book
is called The Little Mermaid,
and it's based on a tale from
1837 by Hans Christian Andersen,
and I'm wondering, Jerry,
what made you want
to retell this story?
What did you think was
there that could be
for contemporary
audiences today?
>> Jerry Pinkney: Well, I
think one of the thing is
that I recognized was the fact
that the hold one our
imaginations over time,
and The Little Mermaid sort
of captured our imaginations,
whether it was the mermaid
herself, whether it was the idea
of the undersea, but
there was something
that fired up my imagination.
The other piece that
was important
at the time was what I
was looking for a project,
the vehicle being the ocean,
and I had -- I loved any water,
and so there was a time when
there was a search for finding
that right project, and
the mermaid had that pull,
had that stretching
of the imaginations,
had the challenge for me.
>> Guy Lamolinara:
What is it about water
that you love writing
and illustrating about?
>> Jerry Pinkney: I mean,
I think the whole idea
of how do you capture
water or wetness?
How do you capture the
variety of wildlife,
of fish life within the oceans?
How do you capture the -- what
happens to the imagination
when you look out
at sea from land?
And it's that wonder; it's that
sense of perking the curiosity
in oneself, which is that's the
character of The Little Mermaid.
It's sort of flipped itself,
and she's looking at land
from the underseas the same
way we look out at the ocean.
>> Guy Lamolinara:
[Laughing] Okay, well,
we've already started
getting questions.
So, I'm going to ask one,
and this is a great
question from Alexis.
Alexis wants to know, I
believe I read somewhere
that you've illustrated over
100 books, how do you continue
to create art, and where
do you pull inspiration
from year after year?
>> Jerry Pinkney: Well, how
do I continue to create art?
First of all, it's a passion
of mine to make pictures.
It's also a way that
I express myself.
I can more easily express a
thought or an idea and certainly
to share a story visually
than it is verbally for me,
and as far as the how do --
where do I draw inspiration
from.
Look, if you look at the body
of work over those like, say,
100 titles or so, what you'll
see is this sense of curiosity
about forms and genres
of literature.
So, there's fiction, there's
nonfiction, there's poetry.
There's this sense of
I draw my inspiration
from the projects themselves,
and that's why they vary.
I work for children, I
work for young adults,
and I work for adults as well.
So, you see that's
the inspiration.
The other thing that's
important is
that these projects offer me
the opportunity to not only grow
as an artist, but also
to grow as a person.
>> Guy Lamolinara:
Here's a question
from somebody who's
a longtime fan.
Her name is Teresa,
and she says,
one of my favorite
childhood memories is
when you visited my New Jersey
elementary school in 1989.
[Inaudible] For the opportunity.
I know. You remember that?
>> Jerry Pinkney:
[Laughing] Yes.
>> Guy Lamolinara: She says
I'm excited for the opportunity
for my children to
hear from you today.
How has your experience
writing children's books changed
since the beginning
of your career?
>> Jerry Pinkney: What a
beautiful question, Teresa.
My first book was in 1964,
and so how has it changed?
I think it has changed, first
of all, the draftsmanship.
I've grown as an artist,
but I also have a much
deeper perspective on things,
on a subject, on time.
So, I think that you find
that combination as you grow
as an artist and you continually
to improve your craft.
That's one thing but--
[Inaudible] itself,
so that the message
or the idea also
changes and grows.
>> Guy Lamolinara:
That sounds great.
How would you say, when you
illustrated The Little Mermaid,
for example, how did you change
it from the original story?
>> Jerry Pinkney: Well, there
was a -- there was this --
it was problematic, I
think, in so many ways,
the original Hans
Christian Andersen in terms
of its dark romanticism.
There were elements in it that
I felt were necessary to change.
There were other elements that
were not necessarily changes
but additions in a way, and I
needed to find a way to do that.
So, we have The Little Mermaid,
she's a wanderer, a seeker.
She has her share of curiosity.
I wanted that to be important.
I didn't want the mermaid
necessarily in search
for a prince or a hero,
but I wanted her to reach out
and be curious and in search
of a, I guess, a
like-minded person.
I wanted her -- she wants to
experience the real world,
the world of land, and I wanted
her -- so you see her search,
first of all, is -- and to
understand the bigger world
of land and sea, but she's
also in search for a soul mate,
a soul mate where she can
share her imagination,
her sense of curiosity,
her sense of wonder
about something other than
the world that she knows.
So, that was -- that
drove everything.
I also wanted to speak
in a universal way,
and you see that in the fact
that my mermaid is of color,
and I wanted to also
to speak to that,
the universality of the mermaid
story and the mermaid mythology.
Every country, every
continent that may border
on an ocean has a
myth of the mermaid.
So, I wanted to speak about
that, and you see that in terms
of what she sort of wears,
the use of cowrie shells
as a necklace and
things like that.
I wanted to do that.
So, and we started out with
looking for a story that dealt
with the underseas, and then
the mermaid and in this sense
of making it universal to
making it all inclusive,
and you can see it kept
building as we got into it,
and that was the magic for
this story, was these sort
of taking the inspiration
from the Hans Christian Andersen
Little Mermaid and then sort
of fitting it, so that
it may have answers
to the time that we live in.
>> Guy Lamolinara: Here's
a question from Maria.
She would like you to talk a
bit about your research process
if you have one and when you
are writing and or illustrating.
>> Jerry Pinkney: My research
process is very extensive.
I mean, I have a library, and
my wife and I both talk about,
we quibble about how many
-- the number I say I have.
Usually, I think I have over
like 2,000 books in my library,
in some areas greater
numbers than you would find
in a local library, and I
have a lot of [inaudible].
So, the research, and
actually the research is part
of my energy.
We talk about inspiration.
The research can provide the
sort of fuel for inspiration,
and so it's -- and it's also
how I come up with ideas.
So, if you [inaudible], for
instance, you're dealing
with the underseas, and then
so you're looking at, say,
books that research fish or
the creatures that we find
in the lower depths
of the ocean,
and then that can lead you to,
okay, the environment, because
what about these creatures
and what about their sea?
What about their
stewardship and their care?
So, the research, it's also
not only looking for something,
but it's also finding things
and finding what you might want
to use in the project itself.
I love the book.
I tend to go to the Internet
when I know I need
something specific,
but when I when I want to get
a sense of place, of setting,
it's the book that you hold in
the hand and you go through it,
and that's the magic for me.
That's the energy.
>> Guy Lamolinara: Thank you.
Here's another question
that kind of relates
to your work process from Steve.
He would like to know, he
says you've mentioned a lot
about the fact that you work
for a range of age groups.
Do you tackle a project
differently,
depending on the age you are
writing or illustrating for?
>> Jerry Pinkney: I think
what you find embedded
in the text itself
is you get a sense
of who this is being
directed towards.
I mean, so that should happen.
It's this magical sort of
chemistry or connection
between reading a
story and seeing
which age group might
be of value.
Now, there is, in the picture
book, it's a lot cleaner
and clearer in a sense and in
as much as the amount of text,
but as we step up to
older groups, it's there.
There are clues that an
artist, an illustrator looks
for in the text that
will guide you.
So, I'm always responding
and to service
of the text or the story itself.
>> Guy Lamolinara: Here's a
story that kind of or question
that relates to the
current book you've got out.
It says folk tales and
classic stories seem
to be a persistent
inspiration over your career.
What draws you, no pun intended,
to illustrate these stories?
>> Jerry Pinkney: Well, I
mean, I think a lot of it comes
from how I grew up and the
way stories were served
to us as children.
My mother loved Hans
Christian Andersen.
She loved the [inaudible]
Aesop's Fables,
and you see that
in my body of work.
I also have, which is
important is this oral tradition
of storytelling, and so
then you have now the legend
of John Henry or the Uncle
Remus tales or -- so you --
and those -- and I think that,
it talked about, a
question earlier,
about where do I draw
[inaudible] from,
you know, inspiration.
It also comes from that.
It comes from the
experience of being delighted
to being entertained to have
the imagination stretched,
when I grew up.
So, I'm responding to all
of that now, and you find
that in all the projects
that I do.
I look for something that
triggers an experience
that I've had growing up, that
has stayed with me and been --
and that still is important
for me to draw on and to use.
So, the inspiration comes from
so many different sources,
but the idea is I
love storytelling,
visual storytelling.
>> Guy Lamolinara: That's
clear from your work,
and I have a question here
from Teresa, who's asking
on behalf of her daughter.
She says, do you
hide any secrets
in your books that I can find?
>> Jerry Pinkney: I
tended to earlier on.
You will see that.
You might see faces, let's
say, in John Henry in the sort
of mountain or the
rock formations.
There are faces maybe
hidden, if you look at some
of my other stories,
especially the folk tales.
The more and more imaginative
stories where it takes you
into the fantastic, you will see
that sort of echoed in my work.
Yes, for sure.
>> Guy Lamolinara: Have you
ever put a picture of yourself
or a member of your
family in your work?
>> Jerry Pinkney: What
now I used in my family
and very earlier on as
models, and they can all attest
to me bringing them into the
studio and finding a costume
that they should wear and yes.
So, you will find in
my children, my family,
and myself by the way.
>> Guy Lamolinara:
[Laughing] That's good.
You have to put yourself
in there.
>> Jerry Pinkney: For sure
and sometimes I, you know,
and there was a time period
where I would just put my camera
on a timer, and no matter
whether it was male or female,
I would dress up in a costume
and then push the timer and jump
in front of the camera
and take the picture.
It was -- so it's sort of
like acting and in many ways,
and I would always get exactly
what I wanted, of course.
>> Guy Lamolinara: Of course.
Here's a question from Hannah.
She wants to know
if you identify
with your characters in any way.
>> Jerry Pinkney: I try to.
That's important.
You want to get inside of the
text and how the text speaks
about a character, and then you
want to inhabit that character,
and so what you do is
see the expressions,
even though, you know, the
text might allude to sort
of an expression, I
oftentimes will act
out that what I believe was the
right expression for that mood
at the time or that
dialogue at the time,
and I'll stand in front
of a mirror and pretend --
this is true not only of
the human figures that --
and the human characters
but also the animals,
and you can see that also
in The Lion and the Mouse.
>> Guy Lamolinara: Right, right.
I know [inaudible] from
[inaudible] I'm sorry.
>> Jerry Pinkney: I
said who's the lion
in The Lion and the Mouse?
>> Guy Lamolinara: You?
>> Jerry Pinkney: I'm sorry.
You had a question from--
>> Guy Lamolinara: Yeah, I
have a question from Robert.
I know you're coming to us from
upstate New York, but he would
like to know, have you found any
place in the US that you love
to be and that inspires you
to illustrate and write?
Do you have a favorite
place to write and draw?
>> Jerry Pinkney: Well, you
know, the writing, by the way,
which is very interesting,
of course, the drawing
and the painting happens
here within my studio.
I find that the writing can
happen, and I think really,
the writers who write
all the time can attest
to this, can happen anytime.
Ideas can flood and sort
of notes, it's always great
to have a pad or something,
you can write down ideas
and things that should happen.
So, both -- so oftentimes,
it's within the break away
from the drawing board
that you also get ideas,
because you free your mind up.
As far as a place
in the country,
I think the West
holds a certain magic,
I think because of the landscape
being so dramatically different
than you find sometimes
on the East Coast.
We're pretty constant and
consistent in our landscape.
You go out west, and it's a
whole nother, another zone
or world of mountains,
of desert, of forest.
Sol, I love going west.
I love driving across
country, because it holds so --
the majesty, the
majestic quality
of the mountains and forests.
So, the images inspire
me to no end.
>> Guy Lamolinara: Okay,
here's a question I must ask
since I work for the Library
of Congress and I get to work
with librarians every day.
This is from Maria, she's
a children's librarian.
She said, I'd love to ask
if libraries influenced your
childhood or writing career?
>> Jerry Pinkney: I would --
let me answer the last part
of that question first.
The libraries here in
Westchester County,
Croton-on-Hudson, and I
would say to you that out
of the number of books that
I've created, since I've moved
to Croton, they all
have an imprint
of the Croton Free Library.
Earlier on, that's where
all of my research was done.
The librarians were absolutely
amazing, and there was this sort
of connection between what
I was attempting to do
and what I was working
on and the books
that you were surrounded
with in the library.
And there was also
this sense of --
and I would do this oftentimes
when I would get stuck,
the ideas would be frozen,
I would just get in the car,
drive to the library, and
you open that library door,
you enter into the service
desk, and they say, Jerry,
how are you; what
are you working on?
And at that moment, everything
that I've been thinking
about has value.
So, that is incredibly,
incredibly important
and beautiful for me.
Now, what was the first
part of that question?
The first that was
-- I answered the --
maybe that's what I should do
now, answer the first part first
and then the second part.
>> Guy Lamolinara: I have
to tell you the question
has disappeared,
and I don't see it anymore.
I'm sorry.
>> Jerry Pinkney: No,
that's okay, that's okay.
>> Guy Lamolinara: I'll
ask you another question.
Are there any kinds
of common themes
that you would say run
through your books?
>> Jerry Pinkney:
I think earlier on,
and this is very
interesting, earlier on,
you see a family running through
threading its way into all
of the stories that I chose
to take on, and you will see,
by the way, in the body of
my work, the kind of projects
that I commit to will reflect
where I am at a given time.
And what I mean by that
is, as the country changes
and my outlook changes, you
will see, you know, again,
there was family, there was a
period of time where folktales
and fairy tales became
important in terms of my work.
You will see at times
when history takes over,
and you find, let's say, Minty
or Black Cowboy, Wild Horses.
So, what you do if you look at
what you can do if when you look
at the body of my work, you can
pretty much see where Jerry,
the artist, was in terms
of how he was seeing the
world at a given time.
And I think so you'll
see that change.
Now, right now, you will
see that the theme that runs
through the work is about
hope, it's about sharing,
it's about companionship,
it's about love;
it's about the environment.
Why? Why is that so?
Because I'm also responding not
only to the projects that --
but also the times
that I'm living in
and that we're all sharing.
>> Guy Lamolinara:
Can you tell us
about whether you
have any advice
for aspiring writers
and illustrators?
>> Jerry Pinkney: I think
that the words that come
to mind is there's also the
theme of The Little Mermaid.
It's about being true to
oneself, holding on to dreams,
and by the way, the dreams and
goals can be motivators to work
in a certain direction or
to make the effort that goes
into any creative works
or being yourself;
validate it in a sense.
So, those are things,
I mean, if you choose
to be a writer, then read.
If you choose the visual
storytelling, draw,
but more than anything,
and again,
thinking about The Little
Mermaid and being a seeker,
that also -- listen to others,
listen especially to others
that have -- might have
succeeded within the area
that you would like, you
see yourself going in.
So, draw as much as you can, if
you want to become an artist,
write as much as you can, if
you want to become a writer.
Visit museums, also be curious
not only about what aspects
or what things will help
you along your journey
to that becoming what you want
to become, but also be conscious
and aware of things
that are around you,
because they feed who you are.
And you want to invest in
something that not only,
as I said earlier, that you grow
as a writer or as an artist,
but you also want to
grow as a human being.
And I think that
and so, you know,
so my motivation is reaching
out and touching people.
I'm very fortunate, and
I can not only do that,
but I can also reach and just
reach out and touch young people
and give them this
kind of, I don't know,
if they're words are advice
or just things in my thoughts
about how I have succeeded and
how I value the work that I do.
>> Guy Lamolinara:
I'm interested
in that portrait behind you.
Can you tell us who that is?
>> Jerry Pinkney: That's my
great granddaughter, Zion,
and I did this portrait when she
was with us for eight months.
They came up for two weeks,
a stay of winter break
from school, and then we had, of
course, the pandemic shutdown,
and so I created that image
and also of my daughter,
who was living with
us at the same time,
and my wife Gloria Jean.
So, that's Zion.
>> Guy Lamolinara:
She's beautiful.
>> Jerry Pinkney: Yes.
>> Guy Lamolinara: Here's
a question from William.
Are there any projects you've
had to turn down that ended
up being hugely successful?
Perhaps you [inaudible].
>> Jerry Pinkney: I
don't know if I want
to go there, but that's okay.
There was one that I actually
received a call Caldecott medal,
and, like, I still
think about that.
Maybe I should've
[inaudible], but I actually went
to the artist, I
think, that responded
to a story and in great spirit.
So, I, yeah, it became
very successful, yeah.
>> Guy Lamolinara: Do you have
any closing words for us today?
We're pretty much near the end.
>> Jerry Pinkney: No, I
mean [inaudible] I thought
about this, about your sort
of theme for the open a book,
open the world, and I responded
to that, because in a sense
that that message is not
only true for, I think,
how one should go about their
lives, but it's also true
about The Little Mermaid,
because that's her spirit,
be a seeker, be a wanderer,
keep your eyes and ears open.
That's what I tried to do in my
life, and I would love to pass
that on, especially to you.
>> Guy Lamolinara: Thank you.
Thank you, Jerry.
It's been such a
pleasure talking to you.
I wish we had more time, but
unfortunately, we're at the end,
and I want all our listeners
to know we've been talking
with the renowned Jerry Pinkney,
the author, the illustrator
of so many books for young
people and adults and teens.
And Jerry, thank you so much,
and thank you for being part
of the National Book Festival.
>> Jerry Pinkney: Thank you.
>> Guy Lamolinara:
And to our audience,
thank you for your
wonderful questions
and please keep enjoying the
festival at loc.gov/bookfest.
Thank you.
>> Jerry Pinkney:
Thank you very much.
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