美国国家公共电台 NPR The Pinkneys Are A Picture Book Perfect, Author-Illustrator Couple

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

This summer, we want to delve¹ into the relationship between authors and illustrators. How do they work together or separately to perfectly² translate text into pictures? Author Andrea Davis Pinkney and illustrator Brian Pinkney have worked together for years and received Caldecott honors and Coretta Scott King honors for their work. They also happen to be married.

ANDREA DAVIS PINKNEY: We're that couple that literally³ met at the copy machine. Two places - the copy machine and the water cooler. And it all kind of stemmed from there.

BRIAN PINKNEY: And we started collaborating⁴ pretty early on. I was an illustrator, aspiring⁵ illustrator. And I had her start modeling me for some of my children's books. I needed a mermaid⁶. So I had her lay across a dining room table so I could get the angle just right like, she was swimming underwater.

A PINKNEY: That was an interesting first date, if you can imagine. You know, I didn't know what I was getting myself into at that point. And now I'm glad I did.

B PINKNEY: Well, it did go in a beautiful way because Andrea did start modeling for me for many of my books and then started writing her own books that I could illustrate⁷ for her, which is really kind of cool.

A PINKNEY: And what we didn't realize at the time - or at least I didn't - was that, typically, authors and illustrators never meet each other. They don't collaborate⁸ traditionally. They don't go to Starbucks. They don't hang out and talk about the books. And we have a very unique situation because we are married, and we share the same tube of toothpaste and box of cereal. So it's a little untraditional in the picture-book-making model.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Together, Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney have worked on more than a dozen children's books about historical events like "Sit-In" and "Boycott⁹ Blues¹⁰" and people, like Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington and Alvin Ailey. And you could say even though they aren't the typical author-illustrator pair, they've worked out a system. First, Andrea writes a manuscript. After she gives it to Brian, he goes to work on the illustrations in his studio far, far away. Then on Saturdays, they have a work date.

A PINKNEY: We have a favorite diner that we go to. The waiters know us. They don't even bring a menu 'cause they know we're gonna be sitting there for hours with our papers spread out. And that's when we talk about the work. That's when we do collaborate.

B PINKNEY: Yeah. We also have little rules we set up - how we communicate with each other, too, so we can stay happily married. For example, one of the rules I came up with - that if Andrea's looking at one of my sketches¹¹ and something doesn't look quite right, she can't say something like, in the case of the book about Alvin Ailey, Alvin Ailey's foot looks like a football because that kind of hurts my feelings. So I say she has to say something like Alvin Ailey's foot looks unresolved.

A PINKNEY: Right. We've learned a lot through trial and error.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: The wife and husband's latest work together is called "Martin Rising: Requiem¹² For A King." It's the story, written in a series of poems, of the final months of Martin Luther King Jr.'s life.

A PINKNEY: I really know the kinds of things that my husband likes. So in the case of the book "Martin Rising," I know that my husband loves history. We both love civil rights. And I knew that if I were to craft that in a way that would allow Brian to think metaphorically¹³, that might be something that would be appealing to him.

B PINKNEY: So the illustrations for the docupoems in "Martin Rising" - I wanted them to be very poetic¹⁴ also, almost like visual poetry. So I would look at some of my mentors¹⁵ in art history like Marc Chagall and Norman Lewis and come up with the visual metaphors¹⁶ to bring Andrea's poems and the real events that happened in Memphis to life.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: In one of the poems called "Chaos," Andrea writes, (reading) The sky's on fire. The sky's torn loose, burned off its hinges. And Brian, in swirling¹⁷ pink and orange watercolors, paints a hazy¹⁸ sky cut through with jagged black lines. Andrea says that, even after all these years, Brian still surprises her.

A PINKNEY: We have collaborated¹⁹ on a lot of picture book biographies, a lot of picture books that are also nonfiction topics about real people, real things that happened in history. We've also collaborated on a book called "Sit-In," which is about the Greensboro, N.C., sit-ins of 1960. And it was so funny when we embarked²⁰ upon that book because Brian said to me, how am I going to illustrate this? Andrea, they're just sitting. And I said, well, honey, go to your studio, and I'm sure you'll think of something. And he did. In that book, the lunch counter takes on a life of its own. It becomes a character in the book and walks us through the story. And that topsy-turvy lunch counter at times looks like a rollercoaster. At times, it looks like a road, and that's something that I never could have imagined. I wrote a book about four college students sitting in nonviolent protest, and my husband brought a whole new dimension to it.

B PINKNEY: Wow. Andrea, thank you.

A PINKNEY: You're welcome.

B PINKNEY: I love how you describe my artwork. I forget what I did.

A PINKNEY: Yes.

B PINKNEY: Yes. And it happens for me also when I read your language afterwards. I can't imagine how you came up with the words and the metaphors that you come up with that are so beautiful and rich and visual in a way that helped inspire me.

A PINKNEY: It's fun to work with the one you love.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That was author Andrea Davis Pinkney and illustrator Brian Pinkney talking about their work together.

(SOUNDBITE OF KRIS BOWERS' "WATER BOY")

1 delve   

v.深入探究，钻研

参考例句：

• We should not delve too deeply into this painful matter.我们不应该过分深究这件痛苦的事。
• We need to delve more deeply into these questions.这些是我们想进一步了解的。

2 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

3 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

4 collaborating   

合作( collaborate的现在分词 )； 勾结叛国

参考例句：

• Joe is collaborating on the work with a friend. 乔正与一位朋友合作做那件工作。
• He was not only learning from but also collaborating with Joseph Thomson. 他不仅是在跟约瑟福？汤姆逊学习，而且也是在和他合作。

5 aspiring   

adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求

参考例句：

• Aspiring musicians need hours of practice every day. 想当音乐家就要每天练许多小时。
• He came from an aspiring working-class background. 他出身于有抱负的工人阶级家庭。 来自辞典例句

6 mermaid   

n.美人鱼

参考例句：

• How popular would that girl be with the only mermaid mom!和人鱼妈妈在一起，那个女孩会有多受欢迎！
• The little mermaid wasn't happy because she didn't want to wait.小美人鱼不太高兴，因为她等不及了。

7 illustrate   

v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图

参考例句：

• The company's bank statements illustrate its success.这家公司的银行报表说明了它的成功。
• This diagram will illustrate what I mean.这个图表可说明我的意思。

8 collaborate   

vi.协作，合作；协调

参考例句：

• The work gets done more quickly when we collaborate.我们一旦合作，工作做起来就更快了。
• I would ask you to collaborate with us in this work.我们愿意请你们在这项工作中和我们合作。

9 boycott   

n./v.(联合)抵制，拒绝参与

参考例句：

• We put the production under a boycott.我们联合抵制该商品。
• The boycott lasts a year until the Victoria board permitsreturn.这个抗争持续了一年直到维多利亚教育局妥协为止。

10 blues   

n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐

参考例句：

• She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
• He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。

11 sketches   

n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概

参考例句：

• The artist is making sketches for his next painting. 画家正为他的下一幅作品画素描。
• You have to admit that these sketches are true to life. 你得承认这些素描很逼真。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 requiem   

n.安魂曲，安灵曲

参考例句：

• I will sing a requiem for the land walkers.我会给陆地上走的人唱首安魂曲。
• The Requiem is on the list for today's concert.《安魂曲》是这次音乐会的演出曲目之一。

13 metaphorically   

adv. 用比喻地

参考例句：

• It is context and convention that determine whether a term will be interpreted literally or metaphorically. 对一个词的理解是按字面意思还是隐喻的意思要视乎上下文和习惯。
• Metaphorically it implied a sort of admirable energy. 从比喻来讲，它含有一种令人赞许的能量的意思。

14 poetic   

adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的

参考例句：

• His poetic idiom is stamped with expressions describing group feeling and thought.他的诗中的措辞往往带有描写群体感情和思想的印记。
• His poetic novels have gone through three different historical stages.他的诗情小说创作经历了三个不同的历史阶段。

15 mentors   

n.（无经验之人的）有经验可信赖的顾问( mentor的名词复数 )v.（无经验之人的）有经验可信赖的顾问( mentor的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Beacham and McNamara, my two mentors, had both warned me. 我的两位忠实朋友，比彻姆和麦克纳马拉都曾经警告过我。 来自辞典例句
• These are the kinds of contacts that could evolve into mentors. 这些人是可能会成为你导师。 来自互联网

16 metaphors   

隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I can only represent it to you by metaphors. 我只能用隐喻来向你描述它。
• Thus, She's an angel and He's a lion in battle are metaphors. 因此她是天使，他是雄狮都是比喻说法。

17 swirling   

v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Snowflakes were swirling in the air. 天空飘洒着雪花。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• She smiled, swirling the wine in her glass. 她微笑着，旋动着杯子里的葡萄酒。 来自辞典例句

18 hazy   

adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的

参考例句：

• We couldn't see far because it was so hazy.雾气蒙蒙妨碍了我们的视线。
• I have a hazy memory of those early years.对那些早先的岁月我有着朦胧的记忆。

19 collaborated   

合作( collaborate的过去式和过去分词 )； 勾结叛国

参考例句：

• We have collaborated on many projects over the years. 这些年来我们合作搞了许多项目。
• We have collaborated closely with the university on this project. 我们与大学在这个专案上紧密合作。

20 embarked   

乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事

参考例句：

• We stood on the pier and watched as they embarked. 我们站在突码头上目送他们登船。
• She embarked on a discourse about the town's origins. 她开始讲本市的起源。