By Patricia Breakey
Delhi News Bureau
FRANKLIN "" A fascination with animals that began in childhood and a lifelong love of drawing joined forces to help Jerry Pinkney win one of the top awards in children's books "" the Randolph Caldecott Medal.
Pinkney was at Franklin Central School on Monday to read some of his award-winning books and share his love of animals and art.
Pinkney, 70, of Croton-on-Hudson, said he has received five Randolph Caldecott Honors, which is like a runner-up award, but said "earning this medal is just amazing."
The awards were announced at the American Library Association's winter meeting in Boston.
Panels of librarians select the winners.
"When they called me at 6:20 a.m. to tell me I had won, I was waiting for them to say the word honor," Pinkney said. "When they said medal, it was hard for me to take it all in at once."
Pinkney, who has illustrated more than 100 books since 1964, won the medal for "The Lion
and the Mouse" a virtually wordless picture book based on an Aesop's fable about kindness repaid between two very different animals.
"All the things that led up to 'The Lion and The Mouse' started on class trips to zoos," Pinkney said as he waited for another class to arrive in the school library. "But the caged animals made me so uncomfortable."
Pinkney began his talk with a group of pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and first-grade children by telling them that where he lived as a child, in Philadelphia, the only animals were pigeons and squirrels.
"But I had relatives that lived in the country, so I got to see the chickens and cows and the wild animals like the deer," he said.
Pinkney showed the students his early sketches in his artist's journal.
"Some of the sketches aren't done because you don't have time before the seagulls fly away," he said.
He showed a slide of his grandfather holding a chicken that was the inspiration for "The Little Red Hen."
"When I was a kid I loved to draw," Pinkney said. "When I started to draw it seemed like it was my whole world."
A photo of his artist studio included a small table loaded with art supplies that Pinkney said was called a tabaret, and he told the children to go home and tell their parents that they had learned a new word.
He also demonstrated the word personification by showing the children a realistic drawing of a field mouse in snow, followed by another drawing of a mouse wearing a top hat and jacket and carrying a bell.
"As an artist you can imagine and invent things that are different," he said.
Pinkney showed a photo of himself and his wife, Gloria Jean, standing at the White House in front of a tree decorated with miniature versions of his books.
"I was asked to design a Christmas brochure for Laura Bush," he said. "And we had the opportunity to visit the White House. Putting my books on a tree was a very nice thing they did for me."
Pinkney said his next project is a book based on a nonsense rhyme about three little kittens.
"I am still as excited about my work as I was in my early years," he said.
Principal Jason Thomson said it was wonderful that a small school like Franklin was hosting a Caldecott Medal winner.
For more information visit www.jerrypinkneystudio.com.
