Snowflake Bentley

2/15/2021

Published in 1998, Caldecott Medal Winner

"When his mother gave him an old microscope, he used it to look at flowers, raindrops, and blades of grass. Best of all, he used it to look at snow. While other children built forts and pelted snowballs at roosting crows, Willie was catching single snowflakes. Day after stormy day he studied the icy crystals.

Their intricate patters were even more beautiful than he had imagined. He expected to find whole flakes that were the same, that were copies of each other. But he never did."

Jacqueline Briggs Martin

Martin (1945 - ) has published more than a dozen children's books which have been awarded the Caldecott Medal, the Golden Kite Award and the Lupine Award. She has been awarded the Green Earth Award for her focus on the environment in her literature, as well as the Award for Excellence in Children's Literature from the Sterling North Society.

Briggs' work with illustrator Caludia McGehee and writers Liza Ketchum and Phyllis Root on her next title, Begin With A Bee, will be published in May, 2021.

Mary Azarian

Azarian (1940 - ) is primarily a woodcut artist but has illustrated more than 50 children's books. She left teaching - in one of Vermont's last one-room schoolhouses - in 1969 to start Farmhouse Press. Initially, Azarian printed by hand in black and white, but began experimenting with color once she was able to use a 19th century printing press. Her handmade prints are available at her site, but she cautions,

"When you order a print, I will handprint and hand paint your art to create a unique piece that may vary slightly from what you see on this website."

Book Synopsis

Snowflake Bentley is a gently told introduction to Wilson Bentley, the first person to take detailed pictures of snowflakes. This little biography introduces Bentley's interests and his life-long perseverance in pursuing his passion for snowflakes.

Bentley's work was so thorough - and phenomenally beautiful - his collection of photographic plates has been used for more than 100 years in the study of atmospheric ice crystal formation. In 1931 he published 2,500 of his photographs in Snow Crystals with William Humphreys of the U.S. Weather Bureau. Bentley was one of the first cloud physicists and the first American to record the size of raindrops.

Picture book, early chapter book readers, 28 pages. Introductory biography of W.A.Bentley, a self-taught scientist who photographed thousands of snowflakes.

If you desire a fully prepared unit of lessons about snow, Our Journey Westward offers for a modest cost Snow & Ice, A Winter Nature Study Guide for elementary age students. The Guide is designed to support whatever method of learning at home you prefer.

Learning Options

Family Read Aloud Time
This is a great cuddly-time read when the weather is a bit brisk - even better if it is snowing! Be ready with cups of hot cocoa, scissors and lots of paper to create snowflakes to add to your windows.

Classroom Resource
Snowflake Bentley is a really nice biography to add to your classroom book collection. Even better would be to use this title in a creative or unusual book report assignment.

Learning at Home
At the heart of Wilson Bentley's passion was the scientific process of observing and recording - he spent a lifetime observing and drawing and photographing thousands of ephemeral snowflakes!

Teaching children the art of observing and recording nature is not a quick lesson, but worth every hour invested. There are a number of websites about nature study for children: