Pink and Say
book by Patricia Polacco
Pink and Say is a children's book written and illustrated by Patricia Polacco. It was first published in 1994 by Philomel Books. The story is about two boy soldiers who meet each other in the battlefield during the American Civil War. One of the protagonists, Sheldon Russell Curtis ("Say"), is a white soldier who was injured while trying to escape battle. He is saved by a formerly enslaved boy named Pinkus Aylee ("Pink"), who is now a soldier of the 48th Regiment Infantry U.S. Colored Troops. Pink carries him back to his Georgia home where he and his family were slaves. While the frightened soldier is nursed back to health under the care of Pink’s mother, Moe Moe Bay, he begins to understand why his newfound friend is so adamant on returning to the war; to fight against the sickness that is slavery.
Plot
During the American Civil War, teenaged Union soldier Sheldon Russell "Say" Curtis is left for dead on the battlefield after being wounded in the leg, but is found and rescued by fellow Union soldier Pinkus "Pink" Aylee, a teenaged former slave in the 48th Colored Infantry Regiment who has been separated from his unit. Finding Say delirious with fever, Pink carries him to the abandoned site of the Aylee family's plantation, where he formerly lived and worked during his time as a slave. With the plantation having been abandoned since the outbreak of the war, Pink's mother Moe Moe Bay now lives there alone, periodically taking refuge from Confederate "marauders".
The public source identifies “Pink and Say” as book by Patricia Polacco. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Pink, book and Patricia.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17147161. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1994.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pink and Say” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.