Sunday, March 8, 2015

Snowflake Bentley

How could we go through a winter season without reading this book?!

Jacqueline Briggs Martin
illustrated by Mary Azarian 2009

Mary Azarian's illustrations have a woodblock feel, as Jacqueline Briggs Martin tells the true story of Wilson Bentley, a farmer's son who grew to love and study nature.  He was particularly interested in precipitation and snowflakes.  After getting a camera, Willie discovered a way to take photographs of snowflakes.  It was tricky and had to be done in absolute cold so that the crystals wouldn't melt, but in the end he was able to make strikingly beautiful pictures of magnified snowflakes.








 For fifty years Wilson A. Bentley, a simple farmer, developed his technique of microphotography to reveal to the world the grandeur and mystery of the snowflake- its universal hexagonal shape and its infinite number of lovely designs.



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