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Caldecott Monday: Snowflake Bentley
Oct. 16th, 2017 05:20 pmSnowflake Bentley, the 1999 Caldecott award winner, is a picture book biography of Wilson Bentley. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Bentley photographed hundreds of snowflakes, showing that each one was utterly unique and beautiful, although it must be noted he only photographed the perfect ones. He caught his snowflakes on a tray and "When he found only jumbled, broken crystals, he brushed the tray clean with a turkey feather and held it out again."
So yes. The entire special snowflake metaphor is built on a foundation of snowflakes carefully handpicked to be worth photographing. Make of that what you will.
The snowflakes are far less prominent in the illustrations than you might expect. There is a snowflake motif in the side panels, but - amusingly, given the subject - it's the same motif each time, not unique snowflakes. Otherwise, there are only a couple of drawings of individual snowflakes (lots of pictures of snowy scenes, though!) and at the very end, reproductions of a few of Bentley's snowflake photos, which really are gorgeous. In fact, it made me want to find a copy of his original book, which is perhaps what the authors of Snowflake Bentley were hoping for anyway.
And the woodcut illustrations are charming. (And probably explain that repeating snowflake motif: why cut a new block of wood for every snowflake page when you've already got one prepped?)
So yes. The entire special snowflake metaphor is built on a foundation of snowflakes carefully handpicked to be worth photographing. Make of that what you will.
The snowflakes are far less prominent in the illustrations than you might expect. There is a snowflake motif in the side panels, but - amusingly, given the subject - it's the same motif each time, not unique snowflakes. Otherwise, there are only a couple of drawings of individual snowflakes (lots of pictures of snowy scenes, though!) and at the very end, reproductions of a few of Bentley's snowflake photos, which really are gorgeous. In fact, it made me want to find a copy of his original book, which is perhaps what the authors of Snowflake Bentley were hoping for anyway.
And the woodcut illustrations are charming. (And probably explain that repeating snowflake motif: why cut a new block of wood for every snowflake page when you've already got one prepped?)
