Non-Fiction Picture Books - Stories We Never Knew

art by Sarah S. Brannen

           Visit Alyson Beecher on Wednesdays for Non-Fiction Picture Books at Kidlit Frenzy.  From her post and others, you will discover and want to celebrate terrific nonfiction picture books! 


             I've had this book for a while, just had not read it yet, but now, wow! It is the 2019 Orbus Pictus Award Winner, announced this past week at the NCTE convention.

       I am not a big football fan, have never heard of Ernie Barnes the NFL player but I now know I've seen the paintings of Ernie Barnes, the artist, possibly because of seeing art with a student years ago, who wanted to paint sports heroes. I am no longer sure of the name, but I remember the brilliant full-of-action work of Ernie's paintings. Now I know some of his story, too, from this book by Sandra Neil Wallace.

       Ernie Barnes grew up in North Carolina, loved to draw, and even drew in the mud when he was young. He carried a sketchbook everywhere. In his home in the segregated south, no one told him how to make a living as an artist, but a note at the back said a weight-lifting coach discovered him and made him an athlete.  He became a football star, earned scholarships to college, eventually ending in the NFL.

       One review says that his "work has influenced a generation of painters and illustrators and can be found in museums and collections, such as the African American Museum in Philadelphia and the California African American Museum."

       One thing I loved in this story is that Ernie's parents, while in the south kept from many public places like art museums, knew that the arts were important and that Ernie wanted to be an artist. His mother took him to work with her some days so he could see the art in the home of a wealthy lawyer where she worked. There are others who gave him courage to continue doing art like his art teacher, even a coach who kept fining him when caught sketching during football games (thus he kept going anyway)! 

       In the final game of 1964, a rainy clash, Ernie was newly inspired when the field turned to mud. "Painting mud." He finally decided to give up football and quit. It was a courageous act which left him broke until he presented himself to a meeting of the team owners, asking them to hire him as the official artist of the American Football League. His brilliant idea worked; he was soon exhibiting and selling his work in New York galleries, the success achieved from those early days of drawing in mud.