![]() When he saw those signs, he changed his name to Ezra Jack Keats." ![]() "There were literally signs in windows that said: 'Jews need not apply.' Ezra was born with the name Jacob (Jack) Ezra Katz. After serving in the Army, Keats returned to face discrimination at home. As a child, Keats wanted to become an artist, but his father died when he was a teen, World War II broke out, and his dreams were put on hold. ![]() City streets, sidewalks, stoops - everything that I held so dear."Īs she worked on the biography, Pinkney learned that Keats was also a city kid, the child of immigrants who fled anti-Semitism in Poland. "And here was this book that made my life, my experience, valid. ![]() "Up to that point, there were many picture books but they were in rural settings," she says. When Pinkney was asked to write a book about Keats, she says she jumped at the chance "like a kid on a sled." The Snowy Day was her favorite book as a child she says it brought her comfort to see her own life reflected on the page. Now, Pinkney pays homage to Keats in a new book called A Poem for Peter, and there is an animated, Snowy Day special streaming on Amazon. ![]() The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats would go on to win a Caldecott Medal. More than 50 years ago, Peter - an African-American boy exploring his neighborhood after a snowstorm - broke the color barrier in mainstream children's publishing. "I loved that book - it was like a pillow to me," she says. Author Andrea Davis Pinkney used to sleep with a copy of The Snowy Day. ![]()
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