“A Poem for Peter,” by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrations by Lou Rancher and Steve Johnson
Viking Press, New York, 2016, 52 pages, Grades 3-5.
Literature is able to break through barriers and help people understand others. Today, the world of children’s literature is very multicultural and nurturing. But in the early 1960s this was not the case. Minority characters were simply not in most children’s books. I don’t believe that this occurred because of some type of conspiracy against minorities, but because of a cultural blindness about who should be portrayed in children’s literature.
The regrettable result of these decisions is that minority children did not see pictures of people looking like themselves in literature. Fortunately, positive change was on the way.
Ezra Jack Keats was one of the first author/illustrators to create, draw and write about well-formed minority characters. His beloved character “Peter” was the ground breaking protagonist in his famous book, “Snowy Day.” Award-winning author/illustrator Andrea Davis Pinkney, has written a poignant biography of the rich life of Ezra Jack Keats. The name of this touching book is “A Poem for Peter.”
Life doesn’t always give people easy options. The Katz family fled Poland to escape anti-Semitism. Arriving in New York, the poor Jewish family lived in a threadbare district in Brooklyn. Soon after arriving, Ezra Jack was born.
From an early age, the child showed remarkable ability and interest in art. But Papa Katz was leery of his son becoming an artist because so many artists lived in poverty. At the same time, he took a hidden pride in young Ezra’s growing number of art honors.
To Ezra’s great joy, he was allowed to visit the public library and learn about the immense world around him. The library would prove to become a university for him. But the Great Depression crushed any hope of advanced education for the young man.
He didn’t give up, however, and saw many other people in hard places in American society. They were from all races and nationalities and usually lived in urban settings. These images struck a deep chord with Ezra, as he too had suffered from poverty and anti-Jewish prejudice. Finally, the religious animosity became so bad that he anglicized his name from Katz to Keats.
One day, he saw a picture of a young African American boy in a series of photographs from Life Magazine and was struck by the child’s plucky attitude. Some years later a children’s literature publisher asked Ezra Jack Keats to create a non-white character as the central character of a picture book. Who should he choose? A pleasant image came to his mind.
What did Ezra Jack Keats create from this experience? Why are his characters so human and personable? How did Ezra Jack Keats help the United States see more of itself? Why was this sensitive, caring man so important in American history?
To find out the answers to these and other questions, go to the library and check out “A Poem for Peter” by Andrea Davis Pinkney.
Andrea Davis Pinkney is the wife of Brian Pinkney and the daughter-in-law of acclaimed authors Jerry and Gloria Pinkney. Few families have this amount of literary prestige. Her tribute to the groundbreaking life and books of Ezra Jack Keats is edifying.
Keats’ works are filled with memorable characters and his subtle way of teaching about racial inclusiveness is marvelous. By the time you are done reading his books you don’t see the characters so much as belonging to a racial or ethnic group as people that you would like to spend time with.
While all of the books with Peter as the main character are excellent, my favorite is “A Letter To Amy.” I hope you get a chance to read this outstanding biography about remarkable life of Ezra Jack Keats. It is powerful and moving.
