Pink and Say

Pink and Say

Patricia Polacco

Grades 4-6

Have you ever met someone that has made an enormous impact on your life? What would you do to keep their spirit alive throughout your life? In this story we meet Sheldon, a fifteen year old soldier of the Union army, who meets Pinkus; the person who impacted his life in a way that he will never forget.

During the Revolutionary War, fifteen year old soldier Sheldon had been injured in a fierce battle and was left for dead somewhere in Georgia. As he was laying there, thinking he was left for dead, he heard a voice. The voice belonged to an African American boy, someone with a skin tone he has never seen, who looked the same age as Sheldon. Both boys were wearing the Union colors. Sheldon wakes up in a house, thinking he died and went to heaven. He comes to meet the owner of the house, Moe Moe Bay, and her son, Pinkus, the boy who saved Sheldon's life. The boys stay with Moe Moe but Pinkus knows they must leave as soon as Sheldon is healthy again for marauders could find them in Moe Moe's home and harm her.
As Sheldon gains his health, he becomes closer with Moe Moe and Pinkus, seeing them as family members. As he gains his health he not only grows closer to his new family but the time to leave is also inching closer. As the boys pack and are about to leave marauders arrived at the door. The boys hid in the cellar, hoping to not be found. But something even worse happens than the boys being found, Moe Moe is shot and killed by the marauders.
The boys head out after burying her body but as they are on the road, they are captured and held prisoners of the Confederate Army. The boys were held captive and Pinkus was starting to show signs of fever. That night, Sheldon help Pinkus like Pinkus had done for him. In the morning, the boys were separated, desperately trying to go back. After that morning, the two boys never saw each other again.

This story falls under the historical fiction genre because it deals with a story that takes place during a historical event but tells a fictional account of two soldiers. The overall attitudes in this story are true to the time period. African American people were not treated with equality and the stories Pinkus shares about his life with Sheldon are true in nature. The dialect in the this story is understandable but accurate for the characters who are supposed to be Southern. It paints a more vivid picture of people in this time period. This story overall shows that color of skin does not matter because we are all humans that can help one another.

The MA ELA frameworks that this story follow are

8.14 Make judgments about setting, characters, and events and support them with evidence from the text. 9.1 Identify similarities in plot, setting, and character among the works of an author or illustrator