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Black Cowboy, Wild Horses

Author Julius Lester
Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
Look inside
Paperback
$8.99 US
Penguin Young Readers | Dial Books
On sale Sep 28, 2021 | 40 Pages | 9780593406182
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Bob Lemmons is famous for his ability to track wild horses. He rides his horse, Warrior, picks up the trail of mustangs, then runs with them day and night until they accept his presence. Bob and Warrior must then challenge the stallion for leadership of the wild herd. A victorious Bob leads the mustangs across the wide plains and for one last spectacular run before guiding them into the corral. Bob's job is done, but he dreams of galloping with Warrior forever to where the sky and land meet.

This splendid collaboration by an award-winning team captures the beauty and harshness of the frontier, a boundless arena for the struggle between freedom and survival. Based on accounts of Bob Lemmons, a formerly enslaved person, Black Cowboy, Wild Horses has been rewritten as a picture book by Julius Lester from his story "The Man Who Was a Horse" in Long Journey Home, first published by Dial in 1972.
An Author's Note
by Julius LesterThis is a true story based on the life of a black cowboy named Bob Lemmons. He is mentioned in two books: The Adventures of the Negro Cowboys by Philip Durham and The Mustangs by Everett L. Jones and J. Frank Dobie. In the latter there is an interview with Lemmons when he was in his eighties. I told this story first in my book Long Journey Home: Stories from Black History (Dial Books, 1972, reissued 1993). The present version was inspired by a fascination with black cowboys that Jerry Pinkney and I discovered we share. Jerry sent me a copy of a 1975 calendar he illustrated depicting blacks in the West and said he would love to do a book about black cowboys. I sent him a copy of Long Journey Home and asked him to read ?The Man Who Was a Horse.? He read it and said he would love to illustrate it, but thought it would be very difficult to rewrite the story as a picture book. I didn?t tell him that I thought the real hard work was going to be the illustrations. May we each keep believing that our job is the easier one.
An Author's Note
by Jerry PinkneyAs a young boy growing up in Philadelphia, PA, I dreamed of exploring the Wild West. My friends and I played cowboys, and with great enthusiasm we became characters portrayed on the silver screen. What fun we had. Today I wonder how our role-playing and self-esteem would have been enhanced had we known about Nat Love, the black cowboy, Bill Pickett, the black rodeo star, and the fact that one out of three cowboys was black or Mexican. Some thirty years later I got my chance to play cowboys again, with a project I created for an African-American history calendar. The subject was the Black West, and it was that calendar I shared with Julius Lester. So again, some twenty-two years later I am playing cowboys. This time I am illustrating the story of Bob Lemmons, herding wild horses on the western plains. My gear is the finely crafted text written by Julius and my ever increasing appetite for American history. It is also the mounting research on this nation?s true West, with -- of course -- cowboys of color. Published by Dial Books
A member of Penguin Putnam Inc.
375 Hudson Street ? New York, New York 10014
Text copyright ? 1998 by Julius Lester
Pictures copyright ? 1998 by Jerry Pinkney
All rights reserved
Copyright © 1998 by Julius Lester. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Julius Lester is a celebrated author whose accolades include a Newbery Honor and a Coretta Scott King Award. He is also a National Book Award finalist, a National Book Critics Circle nominee, and a recipient of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. In addition to his critically acclaimed writing career, Mr. Lester has distinguished himself as a civil rights activist, musician, photographer, radio talk-show host, and professor. For 32 years he taught at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He lives in western Massachusetts. View titles by Julius Lester
Jerry Pinkney was one of America’s most acclaimed illustrators. He won the Caldecott Medal and five Caldecott Honors, five Coretta Scott King Awards, five New York Times Ten Best Illustrated Awards, the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, the Society of Illustrators’ Original Art Show Lifetime Achievement Award, and many other prizes and honors. His long list of celebrated titles includes Mirandy and Brother Wind, The-All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll, The Little Mermaid, and The Lion & The Mouse. Jerry's work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Schomburg Center, the Norman Rockwell Museum, and many more. View titles by Jerry Pinkney

About

Bob Lemmons is famous for his ability to track wild horses. He rides his horse, Warrior, picks up the trail of mustangs, then runs with them day and night until they accept his presence. Bob and Warrior must then challenge the stallion for leadership of the wild herd. A victorious Bob leads the mustangs across the wide plains and for one last spectacular run before guiding them into the corral. Bob's job is done, but he dreams of galloping with Warrior forever to where the sky and land meet.

This splendid collaboration by an award-winning team captures the beauty and harshness of the frontier, a boundless arena for the struggle between freedom and survival. Based on accounts of Bob Lemmons, a formerly enslaved person, Black Cowboy, Wild Horses has been rewritten as a picture book by Julius Lester from his story "The Man Who Was a Horse" in Long Journey Home, first published by Dial in 1972.

Excerpt

An Author's Note
by Julius LesterThis is a true story based on the life of a black cowboy named Bob Lemmons. He is mentioned in two books: The Adventures of the Negro Cowboys by Philip Durham and The Mustangs by Everett L. Jones and J. Frank Dobie. In the latter there is an interview with Lemmons when he was in his eighties. I told this story first in my book Long Journey Home: Stories from Black History (Dial Books, 1972, reissued 1993). The present version was inspired by a fascination with black cowboys that Jerry Pinkney and I discovered we share. Jerry sent me a copy of a 1975 calendar he illustrated depicting blacks in the West and said he would love to do a book about black cowboys. I sent him a copy of Long Journey Home and asked him to read ?The Man Who Was a Horse.? He read it and said he would love to illustrate it, but thought it would be very difficult to rewrite the story as a picture book. I didn?t tell him that I thought the real hard work was going to be the illustrations. May we each keep believing that our job is the easier one.
An Author's Note
by Jerry PinkneyAs a young boy growing up in Philadelphia, PA, I dreamed of exploring the Wild West. My friends and I played cowboys, and with great enthusiasm we became characters portrayed on the silver screen. What fun we had. Today I wonder how our role-playing and self-esteem would have been enhanced had we known about Nat Love, the black cowboy, Bill Pickett, the black rodeo star, and the fact that one out of three cowboys was black or Mexican. Some thirty years later I got my chance to play cowboys again, with a project I created for an African-American history calendar. The subject was the Black West, and it was that calendar I shared with Julius Lester. So again, some twenty-two years later I am playing cowboys. This time I am illustrating the story of Bob Lemmons, herding wild horses on the western plains. My gear is the finely crafted text written by Julius and my ever increasing appetite for American history. It is also the mounting research on this nation?s true West, with -- of course -- cowboys of color. Published by Dial Books
A member of Penguin Putnam Inc.
375 Hudson Street ? New York, New York 10014
Text copyright ? 1998 by Julius Lester
Pictures copyright ? 1998 by Jerry Pinkney
All rights reserved
Copyright © 1998 by Julius Lester. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Author

Julius Lester is a celebrated author whose accolades include a Newbery Honor and a Coretta Scott King Award. He is also a National Book Award finalist, a National Book Critics Circle nominee, and a recipient of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. In addition to his critically acclaimed writing career, Mr. Lester has distinguished himself as a civil rights activist, musician, photographer, radio talk-show host, and professor. For 32 years he taught at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He lives in western Massachusetts. View titles by Julius Lester
Jerry Pinkney was one of America’s most acclaimed illustrators. He won the Caldecott Medal and five Caldecott Honors, five Coretta Scott King Awards, five New York Times Ten Best Illustrated Awards, the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, the Society of Illustrators’ Original Art Show Lifetime Achievement Award, and many other prizes and honors. His long list of celebrated titles includes Mirandy and Brother Wind, The-All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll, The Little Mermaid, and The Lion & The Mouse. Jerry's work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Schomburg Center, the Norman Rockwell Museum, and many more. View titles by Jerry Pinkney

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