2. Snowflake Bentley
By: Jacqueline Briggs
Martin
Illustrated By: Mary
Azarian
Scholastic INC.
1999 Caldecott Medal
Award (Most
distinguished picture
book of the year)
3. Style and Media
The style that was used is realism.
The illustrations capture the life of Wilson Bentley. They
showed what a farm in Vermont would look like.
The type of media used was graphic media where the
artist used woodcuts to make her pictures and then
would hand paint them. The artist grew up on a farm in
Vermont, so she had a lot of knowledge and details on
the area.
The style/media gave you a real image of what it was
like for Wilson Bentley.
4. Line
The lines were solid thick black lines.
The lines ran horizontally and vertically.
The illustrations had a box around the images as if each
page was a snapshot from a camera.
5. Shape
Most of the shapes were curved because the images
were of a farm and things found on a farm.
There were a few shapes which were angular, but that
was of the farm house, barns, and fence found on the
farm where Wilson Bentley lived.
The shapes of the snowflakes were complex. Each
snowflake was different.
6. Color
The illustrator used several
hues. There was a lot of color
throughout each page.
The value used in the pictures
was of lightness.
The saturation was of
brightness.
On the edge of the pages
there was monochromatic
illustrations of blue where the
author gave real information
about Wilson Bentley’s life.
The color of the illustrations
seem to show happiness in
the life on a farm in Vermont
even though it snowed a lot
there.
7. Texture
The artist communicates different
types of tactile impressions
throughout the images. She
shows the snow as soft. The
house looks rough because of the
lines for siding. The barn even
looks like real wood.
The illustrations are seen as two-
dimensional. Examples are: the
boy’s coat is in a checker pattern,
the mother’s shawl knitted pattern,
and the basket has a weaving
pattern.
The artist tries to show the feeling
an object might have by the
amount of lines she carves. For
example, she uses fewer lines in
the snow to show softness. She
shows hardness by using many
lines in the hardwood floor.
8. Composition
The illustrations are arranged
symmetrically throughout the book.
Most of the objects are equal.
The images are very large and seem to
be the main focus.
There is a black border around each
image and there is a side border of
different snowflakes with blue
background. The author writes about the
real life of Wilson Bentley in this side
border.
The printed type is normally found down
low on the image so that it doesn’t seem
to interfere with the illustrations.
At times, an object is brought forward in
the picture to show the objects
dominance on that particular page. An
example is when Willie is collecting
snowflakes while the other children make
a snow fort in the ground.
