Jacqueline Briggs Martin succeeds in telling a beautiful story about a nineteenth century man who loves snow. Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley spent his entire life trying to capture the most perfect snowflake despite the financial costs and disparaging remarks he received from outsiders. This book shows that we can (and should) follow our dreams.

The book won the Caldecott Medal for Mary Azarian's wonderful woodcuts hand-colored with bright watercolors. These woodcuts add to the rustic feeling of the book. Snowflake Bentley was a common man with a wonderful dream. We can aspire to do great things like he did, too!

In terms of the structure of the book, there are usually two columns on a page, one large center column where Briggs Martin narrates the story of Snowflake Bentley, and one smaller side column which provides specific biographical data about Snowflake Bentley that aren't mentioned in the narrative. I really like the story book quality of this non-fiction book. I think that it would appeal to children who are interested in science but do not want a textbook-style explanation. I also highly recommend it to readers who would like to read a success story about a man who followed his dreams. ( )

This story is about a man named Snowflake Bentley. When he was a boy he only attened school for a few years. He became obssed with snowflakes. He gets a microscope and studies them, then he talks his dad into getting him a camera so he could take pictures of them so everybody could enjoy the sight of the them. He takes pictures of every season as well. When he becomes older he gets a book published with all of his pictures.

I liked the ways this story was informational but it was still told in a story format, not just a book full of facts.

I would have this story in my classroom library. You could use this story with a winter unit and have the students decorate snowflakes and make a little book. ( )

This is a story about a man named Wilson Bentley. He was born on a farm in Jericho Vermont in 1865. He dedicated his whole life studying and photographing snowflakes. He was so interested in the snowflakes but he could not study them close enough because they always melted too soon. So he talked his parents in to saving up enough money to buy him a camera with a microscope in it. He made so many photographs for the town. One year he made over 100 photographs during a two day snow storm. When he was sixty-six years old, he published a book but still was not ready to quit.He had spent $15,000 on making the photographs and had only earned 4,000. He was so passionate about photographing the snow that two months later he walked six miles home in a snow blizzard to take more pictures. He becamer ill with pneumonia and died two weeks later. Everyone could now enjoy and understand the snow more because of Bentleys information.

This is an imformative biography that i enjoyed reading myself, but i dont know that younger children would enjoy it much.

If I were to read this book to my class, I would then make them write an autobiography about themselves so that they could understand the idea of facts about people's lives.

Mary Azarain’s beautiful hand-colored woodcuts illustrate Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, a nonfiction biography picture book of the world’s number one expert in snow. From his childhood, Willie Bentley was fascinated by the infinite variety of snowflakes, and using a camera-microscope, he began photographing the minute ice crystals, trying to find repetition; he never found a repeated snowflake. Information boxes line the margins of this almost poetic story. I highly recommend reading about “Snowflake Bentley.”

This book is the story of Wison Bentley who loved snow even when he was a child. He was fascinated by the crystal-like form of each snowflake. He developed a way to photograph individual snowflakes. His photographs were appreciated as art and also by the scientific community.

The sides of each page contain real facts of the the process and of Wilson Bentley. The illustrations of the story are in the style of colored woodblock printing. ( )