Bentley Found Treasures In The Snow

Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

Grabbing books off the library shelf with the sole selection criteria of a Caldecott sticker can lead to some surprises. Sometimes the surprises are wretched disappointments-as was the case with Sam, Bangs, and Moonshine.

Sometimes the surprise is in the revelation of a touching, meaningful story, such as The Man Who Walked Between the Towers.

Other times, the surprise is that the subject matter is unexpected. Such was the case with Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin. I assumed the book was fiction, an assumption quickly shattered. It turned out to be the biography of a farmer-scientist.

Had you told me that the 1999 Caldecott Award-winning book was an illustrated picture book telling the life story of an obscure scientist who devoted his life to photographing snowflakes and blades of grass, I'd have been skeptical. Add to this that the farmer-scientist Wilson Bentley had a life absent of adventure, conflict, and wealth, and I would wonder how such a book could have any appeal.

Which only serves to remind me that the telling of a story can be more important that the story itself when it comes to entertaining and entrancing. Snowflake Bentley is that biography and it manages to work. Martin infuses the story with charm, keeping the details to a minimum, while captivating our interest. It is the story of a man's passion, and passion can make any story worth telling.

Wilson Bentley (1865-1931) believed that there were treasures in the snow, a substance in great supply in his Vermont hometown. He discovered that each snowflake was different and that most of them were symmetrical. He was known as the boy who loved snow and he grew into the man who taught us about snowflakes. The book's narrative told us how his interest was sparked as a boy and grew through the years. It even tells us how it was his trekking through a blizzard to capture more images that finally killed him; he contracted pneumonia and never recovered from it.

On many of the pages are side notes that contain biographical details of Wilson's life that support the main narrative. These details inform us that he was taught at home for most of his life, attending school for only a few years. It tells us about the special microscopic camera he used and how the books he wrote are still used as the authoritative reference on snow.

The illustrations are especially noteworthy-not surprising in a Caldecott Award winner. They are hand-colored wood cuts done by Mary Azarian. They have a rich, earthy, and cheerful tone to them. They take us backward to Bentley's time by using a labor-intensive craft. Azarian first began producing wood prints in 1969. She was trained as a painter and a printmaker and she began experimenting with different methods of coloring wood prints. She has illustrated more than 40 books and produces a yearly calendar of her black and white woodcuts.

The chairman of the Caldecott Committee for 1999 described the book better than I could during her announcement of the award, "Snowflake Bentley has a beautiful and thoughtful design, a poetic and informative text, distinguished illustrations, universal appeal and resonance. Mary Azarian, a Vermont artist who loves snow as much as Wilson Bentley, has created strong and skillfully carved woodcuts that portray sensible, sturdy characters and a timeless rural landscape."

Together, Azarian and Martin manage to convince us that the Snowflake Man is worth reading about. There is nothing dry about this history lesson. They show us that the Snowflake Man found his treasure in the snow and it is a treasure that we can also appreciate.

And if I had any doubt about whether the story had appeal to children, it was dispelled this past weekend. I'd returned the book to the library early in the week. When I let my son pick out two more picks he once again brought Snowflake Bentley. I pointed out that we'd already checked that one out and read it, and he insisted that we hadn't read it enough times yet.