This interview originally appeared in the November/December 2022 Horn Book Magazine as part of the Publishers’ Previews: Picture Books and Graphic Novels, an advertising supplement that allows participating publishers a chance to each highlight a book from its current list. They choose the books; we ask the questions.

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In illustrating Carole Boston Weatherford’s Standing in the Need of Prayer: A Modern Retelling of the Classic Spiritual, Frank Morrison had to encompass more than four hundred years of African American history.

1. What was your biggest technical challenge with Standing in the Need of Prayer?

The price of gas. I drove to every bookstore in Atlanta for research. And my online research was so intense that I became a virtual librarian, searching for images of coats, hats, etc., for each time period. Most books I’ve worked on deal with one time period; this one spans from the 1600s to today.

2. Greatest emotional challenge?

After Rodney King’s horrifying ordeal, the conversation in barbershops, in church, among neighbors, family, and friends was, that’s just the one we saw. It pulls, it tears, it hurts. I’m attempting to do my minuscule fraction of a part to pay homage to the millions that couldn’t tell their own stories.

3. Does prayer work?

Yes.

4. What can picture books do that an art gallery cannot? 

Picture books, for me, document a society that art galleries and museums overlook. At a museum recently, I didn’t see representation of Black families until I exited through the gift shop. I bought a children’s book on the way out. That’s what I love about picture books; Black children can see themselves and dream through the powerful images portrayed in these mighty stories. They won’t see those images in art galleries or their local museums — until they grow up and change that. I thank the children’s publishing world for being trailblazers in the arts by acknowledging not just my culture but all cultures. They are unapologetically dope.

5. Who among the people depicted in this book would you most like to have met?

Duke Ellington. The Duke was self-taught, as I am. If I saw him on the bustling, swinging Harlem streets in his day, I’m sure we would each recognize the fire and passion for our art in the other. That burning need to enlighten the high-nosed folk that we are good, talented, smart, witty, and gifted by God as much as or even more than any artist with a degree. We’d just tilt the brims of our hats as we passed each other. Yeah, man, you know what they say, real recognize real.

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Photo: Lucas Garzoli.