Module 10: Pink and Say

Module 10

a.       This story begins with a young boy laying on a battlefield. He is wounded and left for dead. Along comes a black soldier wearing the same uniform. He quickly assesses his injuries and decides to help him get away. The black soldier is injured as well but carries the white soldier for a long time on foot. Finally, the white soldier wakes up in a home, with a black woman caring for him. She tells him how hard it was to travel so far and that the black soldier carried him for a good part of it. The white soldier is disoriented and thinks he is in heaven. He soon learns that the black woman is the mother of the Black soldier named Pinkus Aylee. Moe Moe Bay cares very well for them and is so happy to have them back. She tells them all that has happened since the war started. Pink secretly tells Say that they will leave as soon as they are healed up because they have not won the war yet.  While there, Pink and Say share information about each other. Pink tells Say how he was taught to read by his old master. Say tells Pink that he wishes he could read. Say also tells Pink that he once shook the hand of President Abraham Lincoln. Say does not want to go and reveals this secret to Moe Moe Bay when she discovers there plan. She is distressed upon hearing that they will leave again. She comforts Say when he tells her that he got hurt while running away. She tells him that it is normally to feel afraid. The next day Moe Moe Bay leaves the cabin to fetch something and warns them to hide in the cellar if anyone should come. The boys hear marauders and Pink is frightened for his mother. After a while, they hear a shot and the sound of horses galloping away. Pink and Say run out to find his mother on the ground dead from a gunshot. They are distraught but decide to rejoin the war with even more determination than before. As they make their way towards their camp, Pink and Say are captured by marauders. Pink is pulled away from Say and is never seen again. The reader later learns that Pinkus Aylee was killed that same day, while Say was kept imprisoned for several months until he was finally freed. He went on the live a long life, sharing this story with many generations. Pinkus Aylee had no family to remember him.  

b.      Polacco, P., (1994). Pink and say. New York: Philomel Books.

c.       I was taken aback by the frank and honest way that Polacco shared this story. Although it is a children’s book, she does not mince words or hide the ugly truth of the Civil War and how it tore apart many families. Her story reflects the language that was probably used in that time. The moment wear Moe Moe Bay is killed is so unexpected and tragic. This is the terrible result of war and slavery in the South. Polacco also captures perfectly the heartbroken realization that Pink has caused his mother’s death by being there. I thought it was very touching that the author finds a way to share her family’s history through her picture books. It makes for a very neat surprise for the reader.

d.      Fader, E., & Silvey, A. (1994). Pink and say. Horn Book Magazine, 70(6), 724.

e.       This book, the story of Polacco's great-great-grandfather, has been passed down from generation to generation in the author-artist's family. Fifteen-year-old soldier Sheldon Russell Curtis - Say to his family - has been left for dead on a Civil War battlefield somewhere in Georgia. A fellow Union soldier, Pinkus Aylee, who is African American - "I had never seen a man like him so close before. His skin was the color of polished mahogany" - discovers him and, with much effort, drags the feverish Say home, where his mother, a slave named Moe Moe Bay, nurses Say back to health. As the boys regain their strength, they become as close as real family and discuss things close to their hearts. Pink shares his special talent: Master Aylee, his owner, had taught him how to read. "'To be born a slave is a heap o' trouble, Say. But after Aylee taught me to read, even though he owned my person, I knew that nobody, ever, could really own me.'" Say receives special comfort from Moe Moe when he admits that he deserted his troop and is afraid to return to the war. On the morning the two boys plan to leave and search for their respective troops, marauding Confederate soldiers arrive and kill Moe Moe. Pink and Say are later captured and become prisoners of the Confederate Army, in Andersonville. Although Say lived to tell this story of friendship and brotherhood, Pink was hanged within hours of arriving at the dreaded prison. Told in Say's colorful, country-fresh voice, the text incorporates authentic-sounding dialect and expressions - such as darky - that would have been used at the time. Polacco's characteristic acrylic, ink, and pencil illustrations are suitably dramatic and focus on the intense physical and emotional joy and pain of the story's three main characters. The remarkable story, made even more extraordinary in its basis in actual events, raises questions about courage, war, family, and slavery. A not-to-be-missed tour de force.

f.        After reading Pink and Say, the librarian and students can create memorials for Pink using posters and markers and crayons.