From: Ginny Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 12:28:00 -0600

Thank you to eveyone who contributed with messages about either The Cuckoo's Child and/or Brian's Winter.
     Thanks to Susan Freeman for your commentary about your fine book. We appreciate your involvement greatly. We hope you can stay with the CCBC-NET discussion community on a continuing basis.
     Betty's recent remarks provided important insights for us, as well as a good summary of both books; we sure can tell you are with today's teenagers on a daily basis, Betty, and that you understand them, as well as the literature. Maggie, we're glad you were able to comment, too. Thank you.
     As a parting remark, I'll say that I hope each book will be given compelling jacket art when it is published in paperback. I almost cringe every time I see the jacket for the hardcover edition of The Cuckoo's Child, because for me as a reader, it just does not look like the book I read or the book on which you commented. Perhaps you are pleased, Susan Freeman, at least I hope so. In my opinion, there is so much more to this fine work than the cover conveys...
     And now, let's talk about Jerry Pinkney's books. A few of us heard him speak at Marquette University last Friday, and we had the opportunity to literally examine almost all of his published works for children. His illustrations can be appraised from a variety of perspectives: 1) superior renditions of animals and birds (he has been quoted as saying this is what he most enjoys creating as an artist); 2) compelling visual presentations of substantial African and African-American themes and topics (he has been quoted as saying he receives the deepest personal satisfaction from this dimension of his art); 3) accurate images of characters in appropriate period & regional clothing and of the visual details related to the life & work of people in a particular time and place (he prides himself on doing historical research for book projects requiring this); and 4) his ground-breaking collaborations with Julius Lester (the Uncle Remus quartet, John Henry, & Sam and the Tigers).
     There is much more to appreciate about Jerry Pinkney's works, and it's time to name other general characteristics of his children's books as well as to comment on specific books. Who's next? Please go ahead... Ginny
******************************* Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education University of Wisconsin - Madison 4290 Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park St. Madison, WI 53706 USA
Received on Thu 17 Oct 1996 01:28:00 PM CDT