Polacco, Patricia. Pink and Say. New York: Philomel Books, 1994. ISBN: 0-399-22671-0
Author / Illustrator Website: http://www.patriciapolacco.com/
Media: Watercolor.
Use of Alliteration: (p. 35) “war whoop.” (p. 41) “heap of hate.”
Use of Onomatopoeia: (p. 12) “hard branches snappin’ back in my face.” (p. 35) “they thundered off.” (p. 35) “whoop.”
Use of Personification: (p. 29) “paper talks.”
Curricular Connection: California Social Studies Standards, Grade 8, Standard 8.7: Students analyze the divergent paths of the American people in the South from 1800 to the mid-1800s and the challenges they faced.
Annotation: Polacco recounts a family story about her great-great grandfather Sheldon (Say) Russell Curtis who was wounded during the Civil War and befriended by a black soldier named Pinkus Aylee. The two young soldiers are captured by Southern troops.
Personal Reaction: I enjoyed Polacco’s masterful ability to weave facts about slavery and the Civil War into her great-great grandfather’s story. Polacco’s great-great grandfather, Say, asks Pink, “How come you have his last name?” and Pink responds, “Boy, when you owned, you ain’t got no name of your own,” (p. 22) and readers learn that slaves take their master’s names. There is a particularly touching illustration (p. 34) in which Say and Pink shake hands one last time before Southern soldiers hang Pink. Pink asks to shake the hand that shook Lincoln’s hand one last time, referencing a story that Say has shared about meeting Abraham Lincoln. Polacco incorporates her own black and white family portraits into her artwork (p. 48) and ends her story by instructing readers to remember Pinkus Aylee.
