Jerry Pinkney | The Little Mermaid

Welcome to #PinkneysPicks, a series featuring the work of children's book author and illustrator Jerry Pinkney. Today's pick is The Little Mermaid which retells the classic fairy tale, originally written in Danish by Hans Christian Anderson in 1837. It is the only book in the show both illustrated and written by Pinkney.

What makes the book distinctive is Pinkney’s reimagining of the story with black characters. When Pinkney began his career in the 1960s, the publishing world was realizing the need for and importance of representing African American perspectives and experiences in the genre of children’s stories and fairy tales. Pinkney has said that his work, such as The Little Mermaid, was “a personal testament to my own roots. When I grew up, I heard these European fairy tales, but I didn’t see them as white, I saw them as African American.”

Видео Jerry Pinkney | The Little Mermaid канала Katonah Museum of Art