TWO ARTISTS, GRANDAD AND ME

The author recalls time spent with her late grandfather, Caldecott Medalist Jerry Pinkney (1939-2021), in his art studio.

As a little girl, Pinkney Barlow relished her trips to her grandfather’s atelier: “Music shimmies up the stairs. The trill, cheep, chirp of birdsong drifts through the open window, mixing with the bop, tap, clap of Grandad’s jazz.” The watercolor paints that Grandad uses are on enticing display. Grandad shows young Charnelle how to create watercolor washes, which she initially finds hard to use, and he gives her a sketchbook. As the pair make art together, Grandad imparts a key bit of indelible wisdom: “There is no right way.” The child vows to “gather these memories and tuck them into my pocket,” and she has indeed unearthed them to create this charmer. The text reads like a prose poem that will likely speak to older picture-book readers and their elders, but audiences of all ages will appreciate Pinkney Barlow’s enchanting digitally tweaked mixed-media art. Colored pencil illustrations tie together cut-paper and found-object imagery, and all the careful layering sorely tempts the hand. An afterword includes two images that may be a revelation for readers: a photo of Pinkney Barlow as a 9-year-old posing as the Little Match Girl for her grandfather and a resulting sketch that seeded the illustration that Jerry Pinkney used in his celebrated adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story.

An endearing tribute to a picture-book legend.