The Dillon Family
The Dillons are among the most talented and versatile children’s book illustrators in the United States. They have earned many awards throughout their prolific career including two back-to-back Caldecott Medals for “Why Mosquitos Buzz in People’s Ears” and “Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions.”
Leo Dillon and Diane Sorber were born eleven days apart in 1933 - Leo in Brooklyn, New York, and Diane near Los Angeles, California. They met at Parsons School of Design in New York City in 1954 and both aimed toward a life of art. The dynamic Dillon duo were actually rivals upon first meeting, but their common interests and passion for art quickly brought them together. “Meeting first through one another’s artwork, they immediately recognized the talent and mastery of the other. Over the years, their competitive friendship evolved into a lasting marriage and artistic partnership.” (9) “We’re an interracial couple, and we decided early in our career that we wanted to represent all races and show people that were rarely seen in children’s books at the time,” Leo said in a 2002 joint interview.
Diane explains the development of what they call the “third artist,” saying, “We could look at ourselves as one artist rather than two individuals, and that third artist was doing something neither one of us would do. We let it flow the way it flows when an artist is working by themselves and a color goes down that they didn’t quite expect and that affects the next colors they use, and it seems to have a life of its own.” This collaborative process results in the couple’s trademark clean lines, innovative color use and attention to detail as well as a warmth which radiates through each image, filling their characters with life. (10)
An example of their focus on universal experiences are the illustrations for “Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions.” The alphabet book focuses on the diversity of different African populations, representing each group with each different letter of the alphabet. “We wanted to portray in “Ashanti to Zulu” that there are many different cultures and it’s just not Africa as one big place, but that like the rest of the world, there are many, many cultures,” said Leo Dillon. Each picture includes a home, a family, an animal, a bird and a landscape. (11)
The Pinkney Family
“Jerry and Gloria. Brian and Andrea. The Pinkney family is unique in African American children's literature, perhaps in all of American children's literature: four members of the family — two generations, two couples, two artists (one an author-illustrator), two writers — all currently producers of award-winning children's literature. And other family members are in the wings. How has this come about? What is there about this family that led to children's books becoming the family business?” (12)
In 1964, Pinkney illustrated his first book entitled, The Adventures of Spider, and went on to illustrate more than one hundred more over the course of fifty-three years. His work includes fairytales, folktales, fables, legends, historical and contemporary fiction, informational books, biographies, and poetry. Though he focuses on capturing and conveying the African American experience, he has embraced the opportunity to illustrate works that represent a variety of other cultures. Each book he illustrates with intricately detailed watercolor images that vividly portray the emotions and nuances of human and animal characters. His books have received every major U.S. award and accolade for children’s books, and he has been honored with several lifetime achievement awards for his substantial and significant contributions to children’s literature.
Jerry Pinkney was born in Philadelphia in 1939 and raised and educated in the city. “There were no African American Studies classes back then. However, my mother thoughtfully enrolled me in an all-Black elementary school, and because of limited opportunities for people of color, Hill Elementary attracted the best Black teachers. I had the good fortune to be taught by an elite faculty of dedicated educators. They would help me navigate the rough waters of being a person of color in Philadelphia in the 1940s and, most importantly, teach me about Black pride.” (13)
Brian Pinkney and Andrea Davis Pinkney are the couple that met at the copy machine. They attended business events, went out to lunch, and from there, "we started sharing about our lives," Brian says. He was an illustrator, she was a writer, and "We thought, wow, we could really do some amazing things together." (14) The Pinkneys have now been together for 30 years and have collaborated on nearly 20 children books including baby board books, biography picture books, and narrative non-fiction books for older kids.
The Crews Family
Donald Crews was born in 1938 in Newark, New Jersey. He graduated from Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City in 1959, where he met his wife, picture book artist Ana Jonas. His education, training, and experience were in graphics and design, using sharp lines, geometric shapes, and primary colors, the design of most of his illustrations. He pursued a career as a graphic artist in New York before he was drafted into the Army and sent to Frankfurt, Germany in 1963. Crews’s career as an author began with a piece, he had created for his graphic design portfolio - an alphabet book. He was encouraged to submit his work to publishers as a children's book, which he did. In1967, Donald Crews published his first children’s book, A to Z.
Donald Crews’s training and experience as a graphic artist is evident in his sharp-edged images of urban life, especially transportation. He emphasizes picture over story and presents the urban environment, in buildings, buses, planes, ships, and most of all trains, but often shows very few people. Most of his stories are brief, using the pattern of a counting book or an alphabet, listing the elements that he is presenting with a twist to bring the book to an end. In fact, his picture-book form presents minimalist text and relies upon his visuals to move the book forward, in Caldecott- and ALA-honored books written from the late 1960s like Freight Train (1978), Truck (1980), and Carousel (1982). However, in the 1990s, he started to expand and elaborate his texts, broadening his style of drawing and reaching into autobiography, to dramatically describe his African American childhood, in Bigmamas (1991) and Shortcut (1992). (15)
Nina Crews, the daughter of Donald Crews and Ana Jonas, creates energetic stories about young children. Nina is a graduate of Yale University, where she received a BA in art. Her career as an author and illustrator began in 1995 with One Hot Summer Day as “the debut of a welcome new voice and vision.” She has worked with several collaborators on books that include Seeing into Tomorrow: Haiku by Richard Wright, The Neighborhood Mother Goose and Below. Her most recent book is A Girl Like Me, written by Angela Johnson.
Nina’s work explores a variety of themes, such as creating updated classic material in The Neighborhood Mother Goose, The Neighborhood Sing-Along and Jack and the Beanstalk; writing stories of children’s imaginary adventures in Below, Sky-High Guy, You Are Here and I’ll Catch the Moon; and exploring simple experiences of urban childhood in One Hot Summer Day and Snowball.
“I chose to make photographic books because photography was and is my favorite medium to work in. I write the story first, though most often a visual idea motivates me to start a book. Once the story is in place, I start to work with my models. The interaction between us always adds something to the project; their performances often generate new ideas. As I’ve read my work to children, I have found that they really respond enthusiastically to “real” pictures. They love hearing about the children who pose for the books – their names, ages and where they live. All of my subjects are family, friends and friends of friends. The books tell stories I’ve created, but also record these children at certain ages – they are stars.” (16)