Snowflake Bentley

Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

Non-Fiction/Biography

Snowflake Bentley is the biography of Wilson Bentley, the man who took the very first photograph of a snowflake. It starts in his early days as a young boy growing up on a farm in Vermont. He loved snowflakes, and would spend hours looking at them under an old microscope that his mother gave him. It made him sad that he could not show other people his snowflakes because they melted too quickly. The more he studied snowflakes the more fascinated he became, and when he read about a microscope with a camera attached he knew that this was the way he could fulfill his dream. He told his parents about the special microscope, and they eventually spent their entire savings and bought it for him. Wilson worked very hard day after day the whole winter and still could not find a way to photograph the snowflakes. He didn't give up, and the next winter he tried something new and it worked! He had figured out how to take pictures of the snowflakes! Not many people were interested, but Wilson continued to work hard, winter after winter, to take pictures of the snowflakes. Eventually he made a book from his best photos and became known as "The Snowflake Man." Shortly after his book was published, Wilson Bentley died from pneumonia after walking home in a blizzard from taking pictures of snowflakes. A monument and museum were built in his memory, and the tale of Snowflake Bentley will live on forever.

I would use this book to cover the topic of weather, specifically snow and other frozen precipitation. I also think that this book would be a great way to model inquiry science for students. Wilson Bentley has a passion for snowflakes and is continuously coming up with new ideas on how to experiment with them. He devoted his entire life to learning more about snowflakes, and I think that the fact that it is a true story will show students that they too can take an active role in science learning.