BookPeople’s Day with the Legendary Jerry Pinkney!

~post by Meghan G., Children’s Book Buyer

Yesterday, we had the tremendous fortune to host one of our favorite children’s book creators, the acclaimed and many times awarded Jerry Pinkney (seriously, we’re talking a Caldecott medal, five Caldecott Honors, five Coretta Scott King Awards and four New York Times Best Illustrated Awards).

Mr. Pinkney was generous enough to spend his morning with about 300 kids from Doss Elementary and their sister school T.A. Brown to talk about the third book in his trilogy of Aesop’s fable picture books, The Grasshopper & the Ants. (The other two books in the trilogy are The Lion and the Mouse and The Tortoise and the Hare.)

After a very busy morning, Mr. Pinkney was kind enough to stop by our BookKids staff meeting and personalize some books for all of us while signing stock for our store. Signed books are available instore and online while supplies last!

Here are some things the kids and I learned during our day with Jerry Pinkney:

The number of legs on a grasshopper (six!); how to spot personification (hey–There’s a face on that sun!); that lions look pretty good with birthday hats (especially when Jerry Pinkney is the one sketching them); and that crowds of kids wearing paper grasshopper antennae are both adorable and slightly terrifying!

We also learned a handy trick from the wonderful folks over at Doss that we wanted to share. So if you’re ever hosting Jerry Pinkney, follow Doss’s lead and get a bunch of your Pre-K students to wear pink pants. Then you can just point to a pink knee or two, get your students to put their words together and join in to welcome Mr. Pink-Knee himself!

Thanks to Mr. Jerry Pinkney and the great folks at Doss Elementary for joining us for such a fun day!