Biography
Andrea Davis was born September 25, 1963 in Washington D.C. and was raised in Connecticut. Her father was a great storyteller and her mother worked as a teacher so they bestowed in their daughter a love of books and learning at a very young age. Her parents were also very involved in the civil rights movement and exposed Andrea to the cause from early on, even taking her to the annual conference of the National Urban League during many of her summer vacations. These early influences inspired Andrea to become a writer. Pinkney did not originally plan to be an author of children’s books. Her original goal was to work as a writer for magazines. She graduated from Syracuse University in 1985 with a degree in journalism and began working as an editor at Mechanix Illustrated. She then went on to work as a senior editor at Essence, as well as an editor for the book publishers Simon & Schuster and Scholastic [1]
While working at one of these early editing jobs, Andrea met Brian Pinkney, a Caldecott Honor-winning children’s book illustrator and the man who would become her husband. It was Brian’s work that inspired Andrea to switch from magazines to book editing, and eventually to begin writing her own books for children. The two have even collaborated on a number of books including Sit In: How Four Friends Stood Up By Sitting Down, Duke Ellington, Seven Candles for Kwanzaa, and Dear Benjamin Banneker ([1]
Pinkney went on to become an award-winning author of books for children of all ages. After noticing that there was a lack of African- American literature geared toward and available to children, she decided to create books that were an accurate account of the cultural heritage and achievements of African Americans. Pinkney currently lives in Brooklyn, New York
