Award-winning illustrator Jerry Pinkney is one of the foremost children's book artists, African-American or otherwise. In Back Home, a book for ages 6-10 year olds, (Dial, $15.00) he pictures a story written by his wife, Gloria Pinkney.  The collaboration of this couple brings a verve born of shared vision that comes from a long, happy, productive partnership.

This is Gloria Jean Pinkney's first children's book, but she's not new to the field.   Jerry and Gloria have worked together for over twenty years.  She discusses manuscripts, organizes models, delivers school presentations, and calms her husband when he's anxious.  She's always told stories about her childhood and for years, Jerry has been persuading her to write them down, but she didn't have the courage until Back Home.

Back Home brings to life Gloria's remembrances of a childhood summer when she left Philadelphia to spend time with her "kinfolk" in Lumberton, North Carolina. The main character, Ernestine, bears her mother's name. The writing is a blending of true events and characters, a fiction built on "giving myself and my mother the childhoods we really wanted" and the intrigue needed to turn personal history into a universal story.

Gloria was eight when the actual visit took place. It was a trip taken directly after her mother's death. The tragedy isn't revealed, but Gloria's resolution lingers in Ernestine's magical discovery of her origins and places and people who were important to her mother. Ernestine is nurtured and learns in an environment of family support and love. She is as comfortable in her kinfolks' presence as she is in the soft, worn overalls she borrows all summer.

Jerry Pinkney's radiant watercolors depict the enchantment of Ernestine experiences. Detailed patterns and textures picture a home that has been loved for generations. Shining yellows predominate in the profusion of colors that tangle in country gardens. This harmony is typical of Jerry's work, as he balances "strong light and warm color." He uses yellow, not as color, but as light and also to create a hopeful sense.

The illustrations of Back Home came easily for him partly because he knew the story so well that it became his story as well as Gloria's. After combining talents for so many years, "working together on project that we both felt good about was very easy".

The Pinkneys have a gentleness and joy that come from being sure and unafraid of authentic expression. Back Home has the same quiet vitality. Part of the strength comes from idiom. Ernestine's Aunt Beula asks her not for greeting kisses, but for "some sugar" and Cousin Jack teases his cousin when he sees her Sunday finery, that he thought she'd "plumb given up on wearing dresses." Gloria uses dialect, not as statement but because "it's important to me to write as honestly as possible. Writing the language the way it was said, the way I heard it, makes me more comfortable."

In the same way Jerry's work is realistic. He shows individuals who differ in coloring and facial features, desiring "to bring a sense of dignity of a people who have survived and have rich lives." Jerry's artistic expression philosophically parallels Gloria's. Both work towards making stories universal for children and giving them the sense of a "world that has continuity and hope."

The loving supportive backdrop of Back Home represents feelings both the Pinkneys experienced in their growing up and created in their own family. Their lives were not without trouble, but the foundation allowed them to see the richness that struggles yield, the struggles that African-Americans have always faced while maintaining their quality of life.

As in most things, when the Pinkeys speak of the multicultural issue, their opinion reflects the same thoughtfulness one sees in Back Home. Gloria looks forward to the day when all children can open a book and see themselves without having to search the library shelves to to find themselves portrayed.

The Pinkneys raised their children in a multicultural world. With a hope-filled vision that seems typical of their life view, they focused less on " what wasn't there and the energy went into what was there. I don't think we talked about what was missing, I think we talked about what was there and we celebrated that."

Jerry has mixed feelings about limiting African-American books to African- American writers and illustrators. "As a black artist choosing to do a lot in African-American subject matter, there's a direct relationship to my growing up years, my own interests, and especially in where I came from." But he also trusts the work of a many great artists who come to their material with a "certain sense of sensitivity and wonder and magic."

Jerry has three books that will be released this year. Thylias Moss' I Want to Be (Dial, Fall '93); Nancy Willard's A Starlit Somersault Downhill (Little Brown, Fall '93); and a Central American story by Johanna Hurwitz called Sylvia's New Shoes (Willam Morrow, Fall 93).

Gloria 's currently working on a chapter book about Ernestine filled with sad and happy events of her life. She's already finished a prequel to Back Home, entitled Sunday Outing (Dial, Summer, 1994). In it, city girl Ernestine dreams of taking a train to see her birthplace in North Carolina and the story ends where Back Home begins. The book, due to come out in Spring, 1994 from Dial, is waiting for illustrations by Jerry Pinkney. "He's a very busy illustrator, " Gloria says, "but I've learned to be patient. He's worth waiting for!"

©Susie Wilde 1998