Fuse 8 n’ Kate: John Henry by Julius Lester, ill. Jerry Pinkney

August 28, 2023 by Betsy Bird 5 Comments

August 28, 2023 by Betsy Bird 5 comments

“Dying ain’t important. Everybody does that. What matters is how well you do your living.”

I’m a child of the Generation X movement and, as such, at some point in my early education, the song “Gonna Die With a Hammer in My Hand”, adapted by the folksingers of the 60s, was something I was well and truly familiar with. That said, at no point in my childhood did I ever encounter a single picture book retelling of the legend of John Henry. Though he’s one of the great American Tall Tale characters, Kate hadn’t even heard of him! This will not stand. So in response to the recent Bookriot piece The 20 Most Influential Picture Books of All Time, we’re tackling one of their inclusions. Now we’ve done many Jerry Pinkney books on our podcast already. We’ve done Mirandy and Brother Wind, Little Red Riding Hood, and the previous Pinkney/Lester collaboration Sam and the Tigers. Now we’re tackling our first tall tale by the duo, and the one that earned at least a Caldecott Honor (though it was beaten by Smoky Night, which has NOT aged particularly well, I must say).

Listen to the whole show here on Soundcloud or download it through iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, PlayerFM, or your preferred method of podcast selection.

Show Notes:

In case you would like to ever read through my Complete Listing of All Public Children’s Literature Statues in the United States you can do so here. I honestly will be putting out the new call next week. Until then, here’s the only John Henry statue available (that I know of) in America. It’s located in Talcott, West Virginia.

For the first time, Kate has said that she’d love to frame the endpapers of this book.

We’ve noted sassy suns in the past. This sun? A “Wise Sun”. Officially.

It would a really good kidlit quiz that asked folks, “In what Jerry Pinkney classic can you find a unicorn?”

As someone who heard story after story of John Henry with just one hammer, something about the dual hammers really threw me off a little.

There’s no explanation of this in the text, but I think what’s happening in this image is that John Henry is keeping the mules calm as the miners use explosions to break up the path for the railroad.

Fashion off!!! Today, folks, we have a classy pair of pants, worthy of a 1975 dance floor versus a scarf that pulls the WHOLE outfit together!

The sheer amount of work that Jerry put into sequences like this one just makes me so so SO MAD that this book didn’t win the Caldecott proper. I mean, Smoky Night?!? Seriously???

During the course of this discussion I seem to remember a Disney short about John Henry. Well, I wasn’t entirely wrong. I was just 40 years off. Seems the John Henry short debuted in 2000, narrated by the voice of Alfre Woodard. Here’s a small bit of it:

Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

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Fuse 8 n’ Kate: John Henry by Julius Lester, ill. Jerry Pinkney