Jerry Pinkney

Photo Credit: Jerry Pinkney

About the Author

Jerry Pinkney (1939-2021) was the author and illustrator of more than one hundred books for young readers, including The Lion and the Mouse, for which he earned the Caldecott Medal. He also received five Caldecott Honors, six Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards, four Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honors, five New York Times Best Illustrated Book awards, the Children’s Literature Legacy Award for Lifetime Achievement, an induction into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame, and an appointment to the National Council on the Arts by President George W. Bush in 2003.

The first children’s book artist elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Pinkney retold such fairy tales as The Little Mermaid, Aesop’s Fables, and Little Red Riding Hood, and he illustrated many stories celebrating Black culture including Patricia C. McKissack’s Mirandy and Brother Wind, Julius Lester’s John Henry, and Richard Jackson’s In Plain Sight.