Booklist starred (Vol. 95, No. 3 (October 1, 1998))
Ages 5-8. From the time he was a little boy, Wilson Bentley loved snow. Yet snow was frustrating to him. He could pick flowers for his mother or net butterflies, but he couldn't hold on to snowflakes. First, Bentley tried drawing snow crystals, but they would melt too quickly. Then, as a teenager in the 1870s, he read about a camera with a microscope. His family were Vermont farming folk, but they scraped together the money to buy him the camera. From then on, there was no stopping Bentley, who was nicknamed Snowflake. He spent winters photographing the intricate flakes. At first no one cared ("Snow in Vermont is as common as dirt"); but Bentley found fame as a nature photographer, and even today his photo book of snowflakes is considered a primary source. Martin has chosen her subject well; Bentley's determined life will have innate inspiration for children. Just as important, all parts of the book work together beautifully. The text is crisp and engaging, using word imagery to good advantage: "[his new camera] was taller than a newborn calf and cost as much as father's herd of ten cows." Azarian's woodcuts are strong and sure, just like Bentley himself, and also, like him, show a love of nuance and detail. The book's design allows for snowflake-touched sidebars that offer more specific details about camera technique or Bentley's experiments with snow. There will be so many uses for this book--not the least of which is simply handing it to children and letting their imaginations soar like Bentley's
Snowflake Bentley gives a unique opportunity to share a non-fiction book as a read-a-loud that still has a great story to tell. Students become interested in how and why he desired to record something like snowflakes. After we have finished the story, I have the students log on to a web site: http://snowflakes.barkleyus.com/ The students have lots of fun trying to design original snowflakes that are very intricate and of course unique.
Posted by Margo Irving
Snowflake Bentley gives a unique opportunity to share a non-fiction book as a read-a-loud that still has a great story to tell. Students become interested in how and why he desired to record something like snowflakes. After we have finished the story, I have the students log on to a web site: http://snowflakes.barkleyus.com/ The students have lots of fun trying to design original snowflakes that are very intricate and of course unique.
Posted by Margo Irving
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