Bill Pickett: Rodeo-Ridin' Cowboy - Hardcover

Pinkney, Andrea Davis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 015200100X ISBN 13: 9780152001001

Publisher: Gulliver Books, 1996

Synopsis

This is the true tale of the feisty cowboy-child who became the most famous black rodeo performer who ever lived. A note about the history of the black West and a bibliography are included. “The text is fascinating, and the oil paintings on scratchboard are full of energy and motion, matching the book’s powerful mood.”--School Library Journal

About this title

About the Authors

Andrea Davis Pinkney is the New York Times best-selling author of several books for young readers, including the novel Bird in a Box, a Today Show Al Roker Book Club for Kids pick, and Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America, winner of the Coretta Scott King Author Award. Additional works include the Caldecott Honor and Coretta Scott King Honor book Duke Ellington, illustrated by her husband, Brian Pinkney; and Let It Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters, a Coretta Scott King Honor book and winner of the Carter G. Woodson Award. Andrea Davis Pinkney lives in New York City.

Brian Pinkney is a celebrated picture-book illustrator who has won two Caldecott Honors. His professional recognition includes the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award and three Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honors. He has collaborated with his wife, author Andrea Davis Pinkney, on several picture books including Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra and Sleeping Cutie. The Pinkneys live in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

Kindergarten-Grade 3?Bill Pickett was a rodeo cowboy in the days when black men were not allowed to do much of anything that wasn't menial or demeaning. Pickett, however, followed his dream. As a young boy, he would watch cowboys herd cattle past his parents' farm and dream of becoming a cowboy. One day, Bill helped some cowboys bulldog a calf they were having trouble branding. They were suitably impressed with his skills, and there was no stopping him after that. By the age of 15, he had left home to work on ranches throughout Texas. His fame grew steadily, and eventually he was offered a job in a rodeo. After just a few years, he was famous throughout the country, even riding in Mexico, South America, and England. His fame not only helped popularize rodeo, but helped to give attention to a black man in a very racist time. This is a brilliantly done tribute to an unjustly forgotten pioneer. The text is fascinating, and the oil paintings on scratchboard are full of energy and motion, matching the book's powerful mood. A wonderful choice for any collection.?Melissa Hudak, North Suburban District Library, Roscoe, IL
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The husband-and-wife team behind Dear Benjamin Banneker and Alvin Ailey continue their superb profiles of noteworthy African Americans with this rip-roarin' salute to a legendary cowboy. Andrea Pinkney's informed, colorful text, peppered with cowboy slang ("Hot-diggity-dewlap!"), provides a lively foil for Brian Pinkney's distinctive scratchboard illustrations. His medium, with its old-fashioned woodcut flavor, works well for biography in general and this one in particular; the fluid lines and energetic cross-hatchings create a sense of motion that reinforce the depictions of the cowhand's active life. Readers will follow with interest the tale of the "feistiest boy south of Abilene" who grew up to become a famous rodeo performer, renowned for his "bulldogging" stunt (which he invented as a child, after watching a bulldog subdue a restless cow by biting its sensitive upper lip). The author gives Pickett's (ca.1860- 1932) life story ample context, too, bolstering it with information about the role of African Americans in settling the West; an afterword discusses black cowboys in general. As Pickett's fans might have said, "Hooeee!" Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the creators of Dear Benjamin Banneker (1994), rip-snorting picture-book biography of the first African-American cowboy inducted into the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. Pickett, ``quick as a jackrabbit, more wide-eyed than a hooty owl,'' left home at 15, having already invented his famous bulldogging technique--controlling balky cattle by gripping their lips with his teeth and twisting. As a ``wild-riding South Texas brushpopper,'' he quickly earned a reputation working both ranches and the rodeo circuit, putting on shows from Mexico City to London, and making steer-wrestling the standard rodeo event it is today. Based on both published sources and interviews with one of Pickett's descendants (and with an afterword called ``More About Black Cowboys''), this covers the essentials of his career while casting Pickett in the mold of a folk hero. Although readers may be disappointed to see only one scene of Pickett performing his spectacularly gross trick (sinking his teeth into the lips of a steer), the swirling lines and brushstrokes of the scratchboard illustrations ably second the text's energy and vivid imagery. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 6-8) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Ages 4^-8. Bill Pickett, one of 13 children born to parents who were freed slaves, grew up in Texas watching the cowboys drive cattle along the Chisholm Trail. Observing a bulldog manage a cow by biting and holding on to the beast's lip, young Bill discovered he could do the same thing. He became an accomplished horseman with a range of tricks, but it was "bull-doggin'" that brought the crowds to their feet throughout his long career. The story is told with verve, relish, and just enough of a cowboy twang, with Pinkney giving an excellent overview of the history of rodeos and black cowboys in a closing note. Husband Brian Pinkney's pictures, in his typical scratchboard technique, are well suited to the story, their lines and colors swirling with movement and excitement on the deep black surface. Susan Dove Lempke

Edition details

• Publisher: Gulliver Books
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 015200100X
• ISBN 13: 9780152001001
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Pinkney Brian
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32