Photography

August 19 – World Photography Day

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About the Holiday

Photography is all about providing information through images. A picture really can be worth a thousand words in capturing a moment of surprise, joy, danger, or even sadness. Well-placed photographers, videographers, and cinematographers have given voice to some of society’s pivotal moments, allowing the whole world to witness change, sometimes as it happens. Today we celebrate photographers who often put themselves in danger to get the story as well as those who bring us much-needed lighter moments.

Breaking News: Bear Alert

By David Biedrzycki

 

Jean Louis, a television host on Our Furry Planet looks out from the screen at a little boy and his teddy bear watching from their family room. He’s brought the video camera into a bear’s den “somewhere in North America.” With a pointy stick he motions towards a sleeping bear as he explains the facts about hibernation. “Look,” he says, poking his stick into the bear’s nose, “even when prodded they don’t wake up. But spring is a busy time for brown bears. Soon they will emerge from their den, hungry for food, hungry for adven—AAAAAAAAAAH!!!” The bear grabs the reporter’s stick as the screen goes dark.

The Skycam 3 News Helicopter takes over as two bears escape into the wider community. They catch a ride on the top of the Our Furry Planet truck carrying the reporter who scans the area and is relieved to find they have outrun the bears. Close observers will notice a pair of suspicious-looking characters first seen out the boy’s window now riding a motorcycle with a sidecar.

The bears are next spotted by the Main Street traffic camera. In an inset the Our Furry driver describes his encounter with the bears as the cameraman stands disheveled behind him: “Well, that big ol’ bear came at us with his claws out like this. I told him to scoot and chased both of them away!” But is this bragging warranted? The reality may be more that the driver and cameraman ran away screaming while the bears peacefully took in the sights.

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Image copyright David Biedrzycki, courtesy of charlesbridge.com

The bears are later found on security video at Teddy’s Diner, where the sign specifically states that “No Bare Feet” are allowed. The diner’s owner and head chef, Teddy Bahr, reveals that he’ll “cook for anyone as long as they’re not barefoot and that the bears were barefoot.” According to the scrolling alert, the bears “demanded to be fed” and indeed are shown gulping down a bowl of porridge at the counter. The golden-haired waitress, Mrs. Locks exclaims for the camera, “I almost had a heart attack…Those bears had no manners, and they paid me with acorns.”

Hmmm…the diner’s TV is relating a story about cat burglars that seem awfully familiar. And is that them again entering an electronics store at Pooh Street and Main Street, where the bears have just turned the corner? A boy yells for his mom as the bears take over his kiddie ride, but she’s too busy on her phone and discovering she’s on TV to pay attention. The scrolling alert warns parents to be on the lookout as the bears “are wild and could be extremely dangerous.”

The bears continue their journey through town, dancing to street a performer while a “cat burglar” raids the band’s donation box, taking their pictures in a photo booth, and watching all the commotion as agents of Animal Control sprea through the streets. The Paddington Department Store spies the bears on the escalator, but does it also catch something—or someone—else at the jewelry department?

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-breaking-news-bear-alert-interior-art-hero-bears

Image copyright David Biedrzycki, courtesy of charlesbridge.com

Suddenly, a police officer bursts out of the department store door to chase the robbers as the Breaking News report declares that there has been a burglary at the store. Skycam 3 spots the suspects fleeing on foot! And in a moment the perpetrators have been caught! Breaking News: “Bears nab burglars.” Once the scourge of the town, the bears are now heroes. The Breaking News reports “Crowd applauds departing bear heroes. We now return you to your regularly scheduled story.”

There’s so much going on in David Biedrzycki’s Breaking News: Bear Alert, that the minimal text doesn’t begin to hint at all the hidden surprises and silliness that kids will love on each page. Bear puns and other jokes abound on every page and in nearly every illustrated detail. Characters’ names, menu items, framed pictures, street names, and more offer up humorous allusions to other bear-related people, books, and entertainment for adults and kids.

Readers of all ages will want to linger over every vivid, full-bleed page to catch all the hilarious happenings and allusions, and especially to follow the subplot that is cleverly inserted along the way. The frame of an animal discovery television show is a sly wink at the genre and one that kids and adults will be familiar with and enjoy.

Bear in mind that kids may be clawing to read this book again and again, and not having Breaking News: Bear Alert on the shelf may pose a very hairy situation indeed!

Ages 4 – 10

Charlesbridge, 2014 | ISBN 978-1580896634

To learn more about David Biedrzycki and his books and to view a gallery of his artwork, visit his website!

Don’t hbernate! Watch this beary funny book trailer!

World Photography Day Activity

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-bear-climbing-tree-coloring-page

Picture Perfect Bear Coloring Page

 

Imagine you’re taking a picture of this bear in a tree. What else do you see? Draw in the details and then color your printable Picture Perfect Bear Coloring Page.

May 25 – National Photography Month

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About the Holiday

Established in 1987 by the United States Congress to commemorate the importance of photos to present and future generations, National Photography Month encourages photographers to really look at their subjects and become more intentional about making photos that will be meaningful in the future. Once you’ve taken your pictures, don’t just leave them on your phone, in the cloud, or on your hard drive. Print them and document the place, people, and time of each picture for future generations.

Pictures from Our Vacation

By Lynne Rae Perkins

 

Just before a family leaves on vacation, a girl and her brother each receive a Polaroid camera and a notebook from their mom so they can document their trip. The first picture the little girl takes is of her feet by mistake. During the two-day trip to the old farm where their dad grew up, the kids play with games from the activity bag and look out the window at the passing landscape. Her second photo taken through the car window reveals “there was not anything to look at out there,” although she does see an orange truck labeled “Yellow” and a motel with a red roof. 

She thinks that if she owned a motel it would be called the Blue Motel, and she begins to imagine in detail the accommodations she would offer. In the Jungle Cottage people would sleep in hammocks and shower under a waterfall. In the Sun Cottage, the bed would glow like the sun but turn off for sleeping. The floor of the Flower Garden Cottage would be real grass, and she thinks up many more.

Her reveries last until the family begins searching for a real motel. They stop at the Shangri-La, which advertises POOL, but as the girl’s photograph shows, “it didn’t have water in it.”

When the family reaches the farm, Dad sees happy memories everywhere. They find an old badminton set with warped racquets (shaped like potato chips, the girl says in her picture’s caption) and begin to play. But one minute into the game the rain comes down. It rains for days and the family spends the time playing cards, reading, and drawing.

After the rain stops, Dad takes the family to a hidden swimming spot. They forge their way through the now-overgrown secret path only to find a KEEP OUT sign and a guard dog.  They backtrack to the car and drive around and around, having trouble finding the lake. They stop at a park, where the girl takes a picture of hills that were built in ancient times to look like a snake from the air and one of a leftover Chinese food container where a squirrel was eating before it ran away.

At last they find the lake and run out to the end of the dock. But a boy warns them of an impending storm. Suddenly, the storm breaks and as the family shelters in the dock gazebo, the girl learns that tomorrow they are attending a memorial service. The next day the old farmhouse fills up with relatives who have traveled there for a memorial service for Great-aunt Charlotte.

At the service family members tell stories about Charlotte’s brave escapades and afterward the whole crew go back to the farmhouse to spend a several days. They eat dinner and tell more stories, and the cousins play. They roll down the hill, climb trees, and explore. That night as the kids sleep upstairs, murmurs of continued conversation float up through the grate. After a few days, the families disperse and only the girl and her brother and parents stay behind, but the memories and feeling of the full house remain.

Finally the girl’s family leaves too, and as they drive home she looks at the pictures she has taken. “‘These don’t remind me much of our vacation,’” she says. She snaps one last picture as they pass a row of huge electrical towers along the highway. When she looks at the photograph, however, the towers don’t look like the giant robots she imagined. She realizes that “it’s hard to take a picture of a story someone tells, or what it feels like when you’re rolling down a hill or falling asleep in a house full of cousins and uncles and aunts. There are a lot of things like that. But those kinds of pictures I can keep in my mind.”

Lynn Rae Perkins’ paean to formative old-fashioned vacations in which extended family members gathered to pass on history and traditions through stories told around the picnic table is a welcome reminder in this digital age that some “pictures” are better stored in one’s memory than on a device. Perkins’ choices of details seen on the two-day road trip, the incessant rain, and the changed landscape that lead to wrong directions are just the kinds of childhood events that often stick in a person’s memory for life. The story is charmingly told from a child’s point of view with realistic dialogue and a tone of heartfelt nostaligia.

Perkins’ realistic drawings of the family are homey and evocative. The kids lounge in the backseat of the car while the little girl conjures up the décor of her Blue Motel; the old house and fields of the family farm are rendered in warm golds and greens with humor and comfort; and you can almost hear the shouts and laughter of the family members gathered on the lawn at the reunion. This is a vacation kids will love to take.

Ages 4 – 8

Greenwillow Books, HarperCollins, 2007 | ISBN 978-0060850975

National Photography Month Activity

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-frame

Fantastic Frame!

 

Your photographs show your unique personality, why shouldn’t the frame you put them in? Today, you can make a frame that perfectly suits your décor or snapshot!

Supplies

  • Cardboard or bare wood frame, available at craft stores
  • Stickers
  • Buttons
  • Jewels
  • Beads
  • Glue
  • Paint in your favorite color
  • Paint brush

Directions

  1. Paint the frame (optional), let dry
  2. Attach stickers, beads, buttons, or other objects
  3. Fill with your favorite picture

May 19 – It’s National Photography Month

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About the Holiday

National Photography Month was established in 1987 by the United States Congress to commemorate the importance of photos to present and future generations. National Photo month gives you an opportunity to consider what you photograph and how you can become more intentional about making photos that will be meaningful decades from now. Look at your subjects and see the colors, people, events, the culture—even the moment that you are documenting. Once you’ve taken your pictures, don’t just leave them on your phone, in the cloud, or on your hard drive. Print them and archive them for the future. Your inspiration, perspective, and opinions will live on in them.

Dorothea’s Eyes: Dorothea Lange Photographs the Truth

Written by Barb Rosenstock | Illustrated by Gérard DuBois

 

When Dorothea Lange opens her green eyes, she sees things others miss. In the shadows, in patterns within the grain of wooden tables, in the repeated shapes of windows on a wall, and most especially in people’s faces. “Dorothea loves faces! When Dorothea looks at faces, it’s like she’s hugging the world.”

When Dorothea is seven she contracts polio. The disease withers her right leg and forever after she walks with a limp. Other kids tease her and make her want to hide. Her mother encourages her, but Dorothea pretends to be invisible. When her father leaves his family, her mother gets a job in New York and Dorothea goes to a new school. She is different and lonely.

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Image copyright Gérard DuBois , text copyright Barb Rosenstock. Courtesy of Caulkins Creek

As Dorothea waits for her mother to finish work, she looks around her, spying “into crowded tenements where fathers, home from peddling, read newspapers, and mothers wash dishes, clothes, and babies in rusty sinks—happy and sad mixed together.” She begins to skip school to wander the city, gazing at it with her curious eyes and heart.

When Dorothea grows up she decides to become a photographer. Her family is surprised—it is not a ladylike profession. She works any job she can find in the photography industry, learning about cameras, darkrooms, negatives, and the printing process. “Alone in the darkroom’s amber glow, she studies the wet printing paper while faces appear in black and white. Dorothea loves faces!”

When she is 23 Dorothea travels west and when all her money is stolen in San Francisco, she stays, gets a job, and starts her own portrait studio. She becomes the sought-after photographer of the richest families in California. She makes money, gains friends, gets married, and starts a family of her own. But she always wonders, “Am I using my eyes and my heart?”

When the stock market crashes and the Great Depression sweeps the country, Dorothea focuses her camera on the desperate and the downtrodden. Her friends don’t understand, but Dorothea sees into these poor people’s hearts. She “knows all about people the world ignores.” For 5 years she goes out into the fields, peers into tents, documents families living in their cars, crouches in the dirt to reveal the stories of the people struggling with the devastation wrought by the Dust Bowl.

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Image copyright Gérard DuBois , text copyright Barb Rosenstock. Courtesy of Caulkins Creek

Newspapers and magazines publish her pictures. “Her photographs help convince the government to provide parents with work, children with food, and families with safe, clean homes. “The truth, seen with love, becomes Dorothea’s art.” Dorothea’s photographs are still known today. Their subjects continues to help us see others with our hearts.

Six of Dorothea Lange’s most famous and recognizable photographs are reproduced on the last page—still as riveting today as they were in the 1930s. Further information on her life and work is provided as well as sources where her photographs can be viewed, resources for further study, and a timeline of her life.

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-dorotheas-eyes-kids

Image copyright Gérard DuBois , text copyright Barb Rosenstock. Courtesy of Caulkins Creek

Barb Rosenstock brings Dorothea Lange’s vision to the page with love, honesty, and understanding in this excellent biography of a woman whose photographs defined the Great Depression and Dust Bowl era. Lange’s life-long connection to the poor and often overlooked people of the world is beautifully described and explained in a gentle, compassionate way that will resonate with children. Rosenstock’s language is lyrical with staccato sentences that echo the clicks of Lange’s shutter capturing life’s reality with her eyes and her heart.

Gérard DuBois’s illustrations are arresting and set Dorothea Lange’s story firmly in its historical and emotional landscape. Rendered in acrylic and digital imagery, they feature the muted colors and style of book illustrations from long ago. By placing the images of Dorothea, her family, and her photography subjects against white backgrounds, DuBois emphasizes Lange’s focus on the people she met and faces that inspired her. Distressed textures accentuate the troubled times and the anguish of both Dorothea and her subjects.

Ages 7 – 12

Calkins Creek, 2016 | ISBN 978-1629792088

Discover all the amazing books by Barb Rosenstock on her website!

View a portfolio of art and book illustration by Gérard DuBois on his website!

Here’s a snapshot of Dorothea’s Eyes!

National Photography Month Activity

CPB - New Professionals Picture

News Professionals Clothespin Figures

 

Make one of these clothespin figures that honors the men and women who work to keep the world informed.

Supplies

Directions

  1. Draw a face and hair on the clothespin
  2. Cut out the clothes you want your journalist or photographer to wear
  3. Wrap the clothes around the clothespin. The slit in the clothespin should be on the side.
  4. Tape the clothes together
  5. Cut out the camera
  6. Tape one end of a short length of thread to the right top corner of the camera and the other end of the thread to the left corner. Now you can hang the camera around the figure’s neck.

Idea for displaying the figures

  • Attach a wire or string to the wall and pin the figure to it
  • Pin it to your bulletin board or on the rim of a desk organizer

 

Picture Book Review

May 11 – National Night Shift Workers Day

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About the Holiday

Today’s holiday honors all the people—medical personnel, firefighters, police officers, bakers, maintenance workers, and others who work the 3rd or night shift. These night owls work to keep us safe and protected, prepare treats for our morning repast, and maintain our living and work spaces for the next day. Take some time to thank a night shift worker and ask them about their perspective on the world.

Frankie Works the Night Shift

By Lisa Westberg Peters | Illustrated by Jennifer Taylor

 

In a quiet town after most people have gone to bed, Frankie the cat begins his work. He keeps busy emptying a wastebasket and cleaning two counters. From his doorway he calls other night workers to three meetings.

When the geraniums need watering, he sees that they are fed. It’s also his job to inspect the tool shelves, and tonight he discovers a stray intruder among the hammers. He chases it as it makes for the ladders—up and down, up and down—between the nail bins, ad up the stairs, causing a mess where there had just been order.

Frankie’s bosses wouldn’t approve, but he can’t worry about that now. He has his important job to attend to. But tonight is a wild night, and Frankie has awakened the management. “Be quiet, Frankie,” they shout. From their comfortable beds they ask, “What’s going on? Some of us have to work in the morning!”

And then the day workers see it—“Agh! A mouse!” They give him a task: “Go get it, Frankie!” and try to help by pointing out its whereabouts here and there. But Frankie is good at his job and pursues it through the cat door and into the backyard. It’s a night’s work well done! Frankie yawns and stretches. As he looks back at his domain, he’s glad he doesn’t work the day shift—there’s so much to clean up!

Frankie goes to bed in his red paint bucket in the hardware store window and dreams of relaxing at the beach on his well-deserved vacation.

Kids will love Lisa Westberg Peters’ frisky Frankie who is only doing his job but ends up creating chaos. Sometimes when you’re all in and concentrating on the work at hand, it’s like that, as kids and adults involved in play or projects well know. Peters’ clever story builds from Frankie’s playful antics in the hardware store to his necessary role of family protector and mouse dispatcher. The story contains an element of counting (Frankie empties one trash can, cleans two counters, calls three meetings…) which serves to enhance the humor.

Jennifer Taylor’s stunning mixed media illustrations make excellent use of digital photography. You almost want to reach out and pet Frankie or catch the objects flying in his wake. And when the little mouse peeks out from the broom or scampers across the floor, kids will say “aww!” or “eek!” depending on their courage. The first page of the streetscape at night is arresting for its uniquely designed old buildings. When I opened to this page, my graphics-loving daughter exclaimed, “Oh! What’s this book?!” and settled in to read it with me. Definitely a great beginning to an enjoyable read!

Ages 4 – 8

Greenwillow Books, Harper Collins Publishers, 2010 | ISBN 978-0060090951

Gardening for Wildlife Activity

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-cattails

Creative Cattails

 

Cattails are so cool, just like their namesake felines. They’re sleek and sophisticated and inside holds mystery that bursts out when you least expect it! Here’s a simple craft for making cattails that will enhance any bouquet or décor.

Supplies

  • 6-inch by 5/8-inch craft stick
  • 3/16–inch by 12-inch dowel
  • Chunky brown yarn,  
  • Green origami paper, 8-inch square
  • Green craft paint
  • Paint brush
  • Glue gun

Directions

To make the cattail:

  1. Paint the dowel green, let dry
  2. Glue 1 inch of the dowel to one end of the craft stick with the glue gun
  3. Starting at the bottom of the craft stick, glue an end of the brown yarn to the end of the craft stick meets the dowel
  4. Wind the yarn upward around the dowel and craft stick to the top. You will leave the 1/2 –inch curved part of the craft stick open.  Then reverse.
  5. Wind the yarn downward, going past the end of the craft stick about ½ inch to make the end of the cattail
  6. Wind the yarn upward once more to the top
  7. When you reach the top, put glue on either side of the curved top of the craft stick and pull a little of existing yarn into the glued area, pinching it closed.
  8. Cut the end of the yarn from the skein and tuck the end into the glued top.

To add the leaf:

  1. Cut a thin triangle from one side of the origami paper, starting with a 1-inch base and angling to the top of the paper
  2. Glue the base to the dowel about 1 ½ inches from the bottom
  3. Wind the paper upward around the dowel, leaving 5 inches unwound
  4. Glue the paper to the dowel, letting the 5-inch section stick up

If you’d like to make another craft using chunky brown yarn, see my April 7 post on The Flying Beaver Brothers and the Crazy Critter Race by Maxwell Eaton III to create a cute spool beaver.

March 16 – Freedom of Information Day

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Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America Picture Book Review

About the Holiday

Freedom of Information Day is observed today to honor James Madison, who was born March 16, 1751 in Port Conway, Virginia. Madison is widely regarded as the Father of the Constitution and was the 4th President of the United States. He was a leading proponent of openness in government. The Freedom of Information Act, which took effect on July 4 1967, was enacted to promote transparency in government, but the idea of openness and inclusion can pertain to all aspects of society and relationships.

Today we remember all those who work to provide free and honest information and portrayals of government as well as other conditions and situations around the world.

Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America

Written by Carole Boston Weatherford | Illustrated by Jamey Christoph

 

When the 15th child of the Parks family is born, he has neither a heartbeat nor a name. But the doctor is able to revive the nearly dead infant in an ice bath, and the appreciative mother gives her child his name—Gordon. Gordon Parks’ dramatic entry into the world may have given him the unique perspective he used in becoming a renowned photographer and the first black movie director in Hollywood.

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-gordon-parks-how-the-photographer-captured-black-and-white-america-gordon-works

Image copyright Jamey Christoph, 2015, text copyright Carole Boston Weatherford, 2015. Courtesy of Albert Whitman & Company.

Gordon rides a horse across the wide open fields of Kansas to school, but once there his prospects narrow with a white teacher who tells her all-black class that their education will go to waste as they are destined to work as waiters and porters. When he is 14 Gordon’s mother dies, and Gordon moves to Minneapolis. He soon must make his own way, and he finds jobs as a busboy, a piano player, and the predicted waiter and porter.

At the age of 25 Gordon reads about the plight of migrant workers and, inspired, buys a camera. Gordon has discovered his natural talent—a unique eye on the world. After only a month he exhibits his photographs in a camera store and is soon engaged in fashion and portrait photography. His work takes him to Chicago, where he documents the struggling families living on the South Side and wins a job with the government in Washington DC. Encouraged by his boss to find a subject for his work, Gordon focuses his lens on the black families living in the back alleys and in the shadows of the Capitol’s great monuments.

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-gordon-parks-how-the-photographer-captured-black-and-white-america-gordon-sees-a-camera

Image copyright Jamey Christoph, 2015, text copyright Carole Boston Weatherford 2015. Courtesy of Albert Whitman & Company.

Through his photographs Gordon vows to expose the racism blacks face in housing, shops, restaurants, and other institutions. Looking for a personal subject, Gordon talks to Ella Watson, a cleaning lady in his office building. Ella supports five children on only $1,000 a year and knows hardship. Gordon accompanies her and her grandchildren, taking pictures wherever they go and of whatever they are doing. They become the inspiration for his greatest work.

Over his lifetime Gordon Parks will break barriers in the publishing and entertainment industries, becoming the first black photographer for Vogue and Life magazines and the first black director in Hollywood. He writes novels and poetry and composes music. But the work that becomes his most famous is a photograph of Ella Watson standing in front of the American flag, with her broom in hand. Called “American Gothic,” this picture fulfills Park’s determination to expose segregation and the hopes of all people struggling under its inequality.

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-gordon-parks-how-the-photographer-captured-black-and-white-america-gordon-in-washington

Image copyright Jamey Christoph, 2015, text copyright Carole Boston Weatherford, 2015. Courtesy of Albert Whitman & Company.

Carole Boston Weatherford’s portrayal of Gordon Parks’ life is as starkly revealing as her subject’s photographs. With her writer’s skills, however, she deftly contrasts the facts of his life and turns his story into a universal metaphor for freedom and the struggle to attain it: “When young Gordon crosses the prairie on horseback, nothing seems beyond reach. But his white teacher tells her all-black class, you’ll all wind up porters and waiters. What did she know?” Weatherford’s pacing also adds to the story’s power. Although Parks attained wide acclaim, this biography ends with one of his earlier photographs—a picture of Ella Watson, a cleaning lady, who inspired Parks and came to symbolize the hopes of her generation and beyond. This is not only Parks’ story, but the story of millions of others.

Jamey Christoph continues and strengthens the metaphorical force of this biography in his illustrations. Readers first see Gordon Parks as a much-loved, smiling infant. He goes to school and grows up, his expression changing, slightly but importantly. He acquires his camera, and the pages are filled with drawn representations of his black-and-white photographs. Alternating dark and light pages further emphasize Parks’ world. The darkroom contrasts with Parks’ new bright office and prospects; the shadowed back alleys of Washington DC contrast with the city’s gleaming white marble monuments. Later photographs are also depicted, and “American Gothic” is represented on two pages. Christoph provides readers with much to see and ponder.

Ages 5 – 8

Albert Whitman & Company, 2015 | ISBN 978-0807530177

Ages 5 – 8

Albert Whitman & Company, 2015 | ISBN 978-0807530177

Freedom of Information Day Activity

CPB - New Professionals Picture

News Professionals Clothespin Figures

Make one of these clothespin figures that honors the men and women who work to keep the world informed.

Supplies

Directions

  1. Draw a face and hair on the clothespin
  2. Cut out the clothes you want your journalist or photographer to wear
  3. Wrap the clothes around the clothespin. The slit in the clothespin should be on the side.
  4. Tape the clothes together
  5. Cut out the camera
  6. Tape one end of a short length of thread to the right top corner of the camera and the other end of the thread to the left corner. Now you can hang the camera around the figure’s neck.

Idea for displaying the figures

  • Attach a wire or string to the wall and pin the figure to it
  • Pin it to your bulletin board or on the rim of a desk organizer