Azarian's (A Farmer's Alphabet) handsome woodcuts provide ahomespun backdrop to Martin's (Grandmother Bryant's Pocket) briefbiography of a farmboy born in 1865 on the Vermont snowbelt whonever lost his fascination with snowflakes. Wilson A. Bentley spent50 years pioneering the scientific study of ice crystals, anddeveloped a technique of microphotography that allowed him tocapture the hexagonal shapes and prove that no two snowflakes arealike. Martin conveys Bentley's passion in lyrical language ("snowwas as beautiful as butterflies, or apple blossoms"), andpunctuates her text with frequent sidebars packed with intriguingtidbits of information (though readers may be confused by the twothat explain Bentley's solution of how to photograph thesnowflakes). Hand-tinted with watercolors and firmly anchored inthe rural 19th century, Azarian's woodcuts evoke an era of sleighsand woodstoves, front porches and barn doors, and their bold blacklines provide visual contrast to the delicate snowflakes that floatairily in the sidebars. A trio of Bentley's ground-breakingblack-and-white photographs of snowflakes, along with a picture andquote from him about his love for his work, is the icing that topsoff this attractive volume. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.