Snowflake Bentley (book)

Snowflake Bentley is a medium-size book, measuring 10 ½ by 10 ¼ inches, and having 16 pages of illustrations. The majority of the pictures are large colorful prints, the typical art style of artist Mary Azarian, and each picture summarizes the wording for that page. Many of the pages have a vertical side bar in each layout, with a light blue background, and white snowflakes that contains factual information about Wilson Bentley. Azarian also uses a black bold frame around her illustrations, intended to represent a photo that has been taken.

The book is based on a true story. Martin has written about the first known snowflake photographer, Wilson Bentley, and his interest in capturing snowflakes. Wilson lived on a farm with his family in Jericho, Vermont, between Lake Champlain and Mount Mansfield, where the annual snowfall can reach up to about 120 inches. Wilson was very fond of snowflakes and wanted to capture them one day to share with others. With a microscope, Wilson tried to depict the snowflakes through drawings but was never able to finish, as the snow would melt too quickly. As Wilson grew older, he asked his parents if they could get him a camera, so that he could photograph snowflakes. Wilson’s parents decided to spend their savings to buy Wilson his camera because they wanted to support his dream of capturing snowflake photos. With his new-found camera, Wilson went out to take hundreds of pictures. In the beginning, Wilson’s photos were a bunch of failures, but that did not stop him from pursuing his dream. Wilson furthered himself by experimenting more with lighting, lenses and camera exposures. Not many people were interested in what Wilson was up to, nor did they care for his pictures. When it wasn't winter, Wilson loved taking pictures of nature, but taking snow pictures would always be his favorite. Wilson would even hold evening slideshows on his lawn to show his friends. Later down the road, Wilson wrote a book about snow and published his photos in magazines. When Wilson went to publish his first book to share to the world, he got caught in a blizzard on his trip, a misfortune which caused him to catch pneumonia and become ill. Two weeks later, Wilson died of the illness. In memory of him, Wilson’s friends and neighbors built a museum of his work so all would know of “Snowflake” Bentley.

Snowflake Bentley received many reviews. Kirkus reviews says “This is a lyrical biographical tribute to a farmer…whose love of snow and careful camera work expanded both natural science and photography”,[2] and Horn book review says “The book exhibits a beautiful blend of Azarian’s splendid woodcuts, a lyrical text, and factual sidebars.”[3]