We Are Always Rising: Andrea Davis Pinkney Spreads Stories and Hope

My name is Jordan Lloyd Bookey, and this is The Reading Culture, the show where we speak with diverse authors about ways to build a stronger culture of reading in our communities. We dive deep into their personal experiences and inspirations. Our show is made possible by Beanstack, the leading solution for motivating students to read more. Learn more at beanstack.com, and make sure to check us out on Instagram at the reading culture pod and subscribe to our newsletter for bonus content and fun contests at the readingculturepod.comforward/newsletter. All right.

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I interviewed Andrea on the day after our recent presidential election. Very much on my mind that morning was a passage I'd heard her read in 2021, just days before Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn in as president and vice president. Andrea, at that time, read from her book, Martin Rising, which is about the last months of Martin Luther King Junior's life, and I remember vividly the power and optimism in her voice as she read these words from her book. Can a dream ever die? A burst of sun replies, his life well lived for peace and good, Martin's spirit still alive, and with love we all shall rise.

So I asked her how those words from 2021 sounded to her now at this crossroads moment in 2024. There is always hope on the horizon.

I love to be the beneficiary of stories, and, there's joy and power in storytelling, and and that's why I do it.

And his goal was to learn about the inner workings of, Congress, essentially. He was a student at Howard University, a historically black college, and, as was my mom. And so that was my orientation to, you know, really civil rights. I mean, he was he was at the March on Washington, and, my mom was not allowed to attend the March on Washington in August of 1963 because she was pregnant with me. So the doctor said, well, you can't go down with those other, you know, in the sweltering heat of Washington DC with 250,000 people.

But dad was there, right down with all the marchers. And so, that was my orientation. And and we joke now as a family that I was in my mommy's tummy, but I was real she was watching it. She was watching it on television.

That was you get in the station wagon and you go to you know, your summer was the NAACP National Convention, then the National Urban League Conference, and then we would roll into, you know, later in the summer towards September, it would be the Congressional Black Caucus. So on and on from there. And, you know, other kids were at camp and the beach and flying a kite or whatever, and there I was in that station wagon. I mean, just it's laughable now. Like, I was watching history unfold, but kinda just there.

Like, not I don't wanna say dreading it, but just like Yeah. Like, wow. This is like there's Jesse Jackson giving a speech. You know? And I'm I'm kinda

Exactly.

In the case of my dad, who would kick it off, it was finding a parking space. It was the line at the grocery store. It was buying a mop, and that everyday activity included characters, included dialogue, often included humor. And so that's what I grew up in, that you come together, tell a story, often have a laugh, and feel great afterward. You know, you build community around the table through storytelling.

Something about pushing in my chair at at at school, you know, into my desk, or reading a new book, or making a new friend, or petting a puppy, it made me start to think of my day in terms of the wonderful little trinkets and gifts and opportunities that I had to turn something into a great story.

So he was escorting me to the front door and sensing that this was not going to be easy, this was going to be a hard situation, he presented me with my first notebook. And it wasn't the notebook that was on the school supplies list. It wasn't the notebook every other student had. It was my notebook. And he said, I want you to write everything in this notebook.

You're happy, you're sad, your frustrations, you're glad, your new friend, the sidewalk, the sunshine, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, put it all in there. And that was the second great thing that happened, that I got that notebook, and he referred to it as gateway and sanctuary. And I I didn't know what that meant then. Of course, I know now that my own ability to observe the world, to express my feelings on the page in my own private sanctuary of a notebook was a gateway to my own personal freedom and a gateway that said, you have stories to tell. You can share them on these pages.

And that was a great gift. Do you remember some of

And I wrote about the cat having a litter. I remember that. I wrote about the first friend I ever met at that school, a girl named Rhonda, who befriended me. I remember, the desk I had, which was the kind of desk where the desk and the chair were connected. And I remember writing about the frustration of why would they connect a desk and a chair.

Like, you can't scoot it out. You can't so I I remember writing about that. So sure. Sure. I I remember cataloging the situations in my day and then building on them, building a a dialogue around it, building the conversation I had with my friend, Rhonda, making an observation about my kitty cat whose tummy was getting bigger.

The notebook was the permission to get that all down. Were you a big reader? I was a big reader of adult fiction, interestingly enough. Even in middle school? Yeah.

And that is because those are the books that we had in our home. So, you know, both my parents were avid readers. So there was Toni Morrison. There was Maya Angelou. There was Chayampotok.

You know, all those books. So I would see her read it, and then I would I would look at it. I would read it. So my mom was a very avid fiction reader, and my father was a very avid nonfiction reader, so I would read his books too about government and history and science and and all that. So I you know, again, kids do what they see their parents doing.

I read what they read.

You know, you overhear the ridicule, and it's very subtle, but it was more being ignored. So, like, you have nothing to do with us. So you're not we're not gonna bring you into this fold because you have nothing to do with us. So but I I will say that I have the same best friend from the 8th grade. Her name is Tina.

You know, we're both middle aged ladies now, and we have been friends all these years. Wow. And we've stayed friends, and our lives have gone in many different directions. And we stay in touch. We send Christmas cards and birthday cards and email each other, and so that's been a lifelong friend, essentially.

And that's because she is, Tina is, and and was a reader, and we've connected over books. Oh.

I've never met you, but you appear to be at least next to that picture of Jason Reynolds.

You know? But, no. So, no, I was not always like that. I was the shy kid. Some of that was because, again, I was the only bright kid of color in my school.

But so I was very shy. I was, you know, just the quiet one, but observing. What happened to me was when I was in the 6th grade, there was a writing contest at my school. I did not enter the contest. I know I didn't because I wasn't a great student.

I mean, you know, grammar and spelling and whatever was not my cup of tea. But I believe to this day that my teacher got my story out of my not my own private notebook, but out of, I guess, the school notebook. Yeah. And I think that she probably entered it unbeknownst to me. So the day came, and it was time to announce the winner of the 6th grade elementary school story writing contest.

I remember we were all filed into the gym, and it was the bleachers. And I was kind of half paying attention because this really didn't pertain to me. Right. You didn't enter. Didn't enter the contest, so whatever.

You know? And they called my name. They called my name. I was at the top of the bleachers. I had to come down to collect my prize.

And and as you can imagine, I was completely baffled. And my my story was about a man, a figure, that was made of fire, and his limbs and his body and his everything were made of flames. In the store, he becomes a sprinter, and the faster he's running, he becomes more illuminated. Like, the flames get bigger. Now looking back, I'm like, wow.

Like, that little girl needed some counseling. That's, like, clearly some anxiety going on there.

No. But that situation, it just peeled it open for me. I will always remember when the stars fell down around me and lifted me up above the George Washington Bridge. I could see our tiny rooftop with mommy and daddy and mister and missus Honey, our next door neighbors, still playing cards as if nothing was going on, and BB, my baby brother, lying real still on the mattress, just like I told him to, his eyes like huge floodlights tracking me through the sky. Sleeping on Tar Beach was magical.

Lying on the roof in the night with stars and skyscraper buildings all around me made me feel rich, like I owned all that I could see. The bridge was my most prized possession.

Like, wow. Like, I'm sitting on a painting, you know, these hand painted chairs, you know, by Faith Ringgold. So, yes, I I had the privilege and pleasure of of knowing her and spending time with her and sharing a laugh every now and then.

She was a broadcast journalist. She ultimately ended up in the show, producing the news. And I was glued to that show. I was glued to it. And I thought, if I could have ripped off the front of my television and stepped onto the set of WJM and hung out with Mary Tyler Moore, I would have done it.

And I thought that's what I like, I wanted to meld those 2 ideas. John Boy the storyteller, Mary Tyler Moore, she's a career woman. She lives in a big city. She's very independent. Yeah.

And I'll I'll just say that I remember the last episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. The series was ending and, Mary closes the door to WJM and the lights go out and the credits go like, even thinking about it, now I'm getting misty. And I was a kid watching. I never missed an episode. I knew the show was ending, and I burst into tears.

Oh. When she closed that door on that newsroom, I was bawling. And that led me to becoming I I wanna be just like Mary.

Mhmm. And I remember the day the editor in chief, Susan l Taylor, sent me a note and said, Andre, come on. Like, remember, you gotta fill this section. And after I was had filled it, you know, with books by the amazing Walter Dean Myers and Anne Virginia Hamilton and Eloise Greenfield and all of that, you know, to continue to do it on a consistent basis, there was just a dearth of content. I couldn't find it.

And I would I would say to people, Do you know anybody at this, this, or that publisher? And I would say, I would plead. I would say, well, we need a popular middle grade series for girls. We need board books for babies. We need picture book biographies.

We need something that a 9 year old African American boy, you know, the mom of a 9 year old African American boy can give to her son. Didn't exist, could not find it. And it was one of those things, like actually, Toni Morrison said it. You know? If you can't find it, create it.

My husband, Brian Pinkney, who's a children's book illustrator, I would come home and I would just be kinda mad. You know? Yeah. And, he would say, well, then you need to do it. You need to write it.

And so, again, that was the reason I became a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. I was like, well, I don't I don't mean I'm I'm a journalist. Like, I don't know how to write a a book, you know, for a child. But again, I realized having gone to journalism school, I had some of those skills, which is to write with the economy and to engage a reader quickly, like you do in a in a newspaper, and to come up with a title that is kind of a little bit of a sticky message, and to tell something in a short amount of space, give me a beginning, a middle, and an end. So that is a picture book.

Yeah. So I I just kinda dove in the pool, not really knowing what I was doing, you know, and and learn from and also reading a lot of writers and how they were doing it. And it was out of my own desire, again, because I couldn't fill the section of the magazine, to see more of those books that was the igniter.

And then I'm pulling them gently into the narrative. And then, again, if I'm doing my job, I'm holding them like a hug in an in an embrace. That's one kind of tool that I use. And the other one which supports that is something that I call the page one pact. So the page one pact is this.

It is that by virtue of what I put on page 1, I am making a deal with the reader. And if I'm honoring the pact, if I'm holding up my end of the bargain, I am saying, reader, we're going on a journey. You are going to come with me, and after a while, you because I'm gonna invite you in because of what I put on page 1. And after a while, you're not even gonna know you're reading. There's a book you're not gonna know because I've honored the pack from what you've seen on page 1, and you're you're along with me.

And, you know, with young people, especially those who are emerging readers, who don't really have an interest in reader reading, they have the opportunity right away. Like, I have a nanosecond with that child. I have a nanosecond with every child, with everybody. You know? I have a nanosecond.

And I teach MFA students in in writing for children. And I always say, you know how you hear when people say, oh, no. No. It's a great book. You just gotta get to chapter 9.

Yes. It's really good. No. I know. It starts out slow.

You know? Or I'm thinking of, like, your Alvin Ailey biography, which is a personal favorite for me, and Flo, my daughter. You always have these lovely author notes that really reveal this absolute rainbow of people and sources that have gone into creating this, you know, rather short book a lot of the time. Right? So I'm struck by your, ability to take so much truth and research and then distill that into something that still really hooks a young audience but also respects their intelligence and their ability to chew on some big issues.

You know?

And I had traveled extensively in Africa, you know, as an author and visited schools and spoke to children and families. And so many people said, you have got to tell this story. So Amira can't read or write. She's 12, and she is dissuaded from learning to read or write because in certain traditional cultures, it's believed that, you know, boys should be the ones to go to school and that girls should get married. So so I did a lot of research for that.

And, another book that was I mean, all my books are heavily researched because I am a journalist and I'm writing nonfiction is a book called Sit In, How 4 Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down. And it's a picture book about the February 1, 1960 Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworths sit ins, the nonviolent protest by 4 students. So I I bring that book up because it is very researched. I spoke to so many students and people and who were in those sit ins and and all of that. But the narrative refrain initially was they sat straight and proud and waited and wanted a burger with Coke and fries on the side.

Okay. So the book is now the artwork is done by Brian Pinkney. It's on its way to be printed on a printing plant in a foreign land. And we've researched. We've had scholars.

We've had civil rights people. Everything is t's crossed, i's dotted. We're good. At the 11th hour, my editor calls me up. She says, Andrea, we have just discovered that on February 1, 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina, those 4 students did not order a burger and Coke with fries on the side.

You have to change it. So I was like, really? Wow. I was like, how did we find that out? She says, it's documented.

We didn't get it before, but we have that information now. And I joked to her. I said, how did somebody remember that? I said, I don't know what I had for lunch yesterday. I literally can't remember.

She's we I mean, she said, I know.

You know? That does not happen in real life. In publishing land,

I had to retool the whole thing. Now you would think, okay. What's the big deal? You swap out Burger and Coke, and you put in what they did order, which was a doughnut and coffee with cream on the side. You think, no biggie.

It's not that easy. It it's like a sweater. You you have to unravel the whole thing and re knit it. And then Brian had to redo the art to indicate there was there were donuts and coffee and and all of that. And, I was like, yeah.

I'm a creator of nonfiction. I stand by my research. Thank goodness it was caught before the book was printed, and here it is. You know? And and when I visit schools and kids have read it and they've been prepared by their teachers, they know the refrain.

They they say it with me. You know? A donut and coffee with cream on the side. So thank goodness they're not reciting, yo, a burger and Coke with fries on the side because that's not right.

I think that rigor, that commitment is so because because I think there's, like, a choice that you could have made. Right? There's probably a choice there to be, like, let it go. Who's gonna ask this question? Right?

You you immediately make a reprint request, and you correct it.

I don't know. Your the list goes on for you, Andrea. Maybe you could tell me more about the exhibit that you worked on slash are working on at the Kerlan .

Whoever those Yeah. Brilliant committee is, they go on to become just superstars of of the industry. So it's just been a pleasure to work with the Kerlan. And, again, it's another way that we can invite people in through the joy and power of picture books and also the exhibition itself to come into a space, a a library, a museum, and, enjoy some of the original artwork and some of the artifacts and some of the behind the scenes and some of the historical context all in one place.

Stories grow. They live on forever, and you you can't tamp them down. You can try, but it's not possible. Because, again, if we kind of go back to, you know, my own tradition of oral history and oral storytelling, those stories will live on forever as long as you can tell them and share them. And that's what we're here to do is to tell them, share them, and let them bring us together.

So Her Story by Virginia Hamilton, illustrated by the Dylans, is full of rhythm. It's full of musicality. It's full of, again, stories based on oral histories and, it's just one of those modern classics that's just stood the test of time. So there's another book that's a favorite. It's called We Dream A World, and it's by Yolanda Renee King.

Yolanda Renee King is the only grandchild of doctor Martin Luther King Junior and Coretta Scott King. She is now a a teenager. When she wrote the book, she had just delivered a speech at the March For Our Lives Against Gun Violence and, talked about her hope for a future. And so what I love about We Dream A World is that she her her kind of battle cry that she delivered at the March For Our Lives is in the book. And she says, spread the word.

Have you heard all across the nation? We are going to be a new generation. And I'm like, yeah, Yolanda. You are gonna be a new generation, and that's where we look forward.

What are you reading? Oh, I ain't reading that. And I said, how about this? Let's go look and walk through the library. And I'm like, you know what?

You can read this book to that song. And one of my favorite teens, King. He's 16. Well, he just turned 17. He like, mister Billy, I'm glad you showed me this because I used to hate reading.

And now he's showing his friends like, this is what I can do. And I think even with my librarians where, you know, I tell them, I said, look, find your style. There's no wrong way of conducting a story time about helping kids get engaged with reading. So my secret sauce is the music, but also developing relationships. And I think it's so cliche to say that relationship's key to life, life, but it's the key for the community.

If you want to inspire them to read, you know, I'm very intentional when I walk through my library. I speak to everybody. And I want people to know I'm here from them. And that goes a long way when you be like, hey, you should check out this book. You know, hey, you know, you should check out black boy be you, you know, to to the parents.

And they're like, wow. Okay. He really cares. So one of my superpowers is just engaging with the community.

I really appreciate it. It does actually make a big difference, especially on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. So thank you. Thank you for doing that. I know I ask week after week, and I really appreciate you.

This episode was produced by Jackie Lamport, Wanyi Li, and Lower Street Media, and script edited by Josiah Lamberto Egan. To learn more about how you can help grow your community's reading culture, please check out all of our resources at beanstack.com. And remember to sign up for our newsletter at the reading culture pod dot com forward slash newsletter for special offers and contests and bonus content. Thanks for listening and keep reading.