Dorothea Lange: The Photographer Who Found the Faces of the Depression

by Carole Boston Weatherford, Sarah Green (Illustrator)

Overview

Before she raised her lens to take her most iconic photo, Dorothea Lange took photos of the downtrodden from bankers in once-fine suits waiting in breadlines, to former slaves, to the homeless sleeping on sidewalks. A case of polio had left her with a limp and sympathetic to those less fortunate. Traveling across the United States, documenting with her camera and her fieldbook those most affected by the stock market crash, she found the face of the Great Depression. In this picture book biography, Carole Boston Weatherford with her lyrical prose captures the spirit of the influential photographer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807516997
Publisher:	Whitman, Albert & Company
Publication date:	02/28/2017
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	NC1030L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Carole Boston Weatherford is the author of several acclaimed poetry collections and poetic biographies, including Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America, Sugar Hill: Harlem’s Historic Neighborhood, and Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom. She lives in North Carolina.

Sarah Green is a California born-and-based illustrator. This is her first solo book but not her first foray into children's books. She studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design and graduated in 2014.

Editorial Reviews

02/13/2017
Dorothea Lange was always drawn to photography, but it wasn’t until the Great Depression that she became inspired to tell human stories through her camera. Weatherford (Freedom in Congo Square) writes eloquently of Lange’s creative drive and compassion: “Dorothea hit the road to show America to Americans. What others neglected or ignored, she noticed and preserved on film.” Working in a thick, mossy style and a creamy color palette, newcomer Green shows Lange photographing impoverished Americans, including homeless men on Skid Row and Florence Owens Thompson, the subject of her famous image, Migrant Mother. Weatherford emphasizes how Lange was not only an artist driven to make art but an activist whose images generated awareness of suffering and injustice. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Rubin Pfeffer, Rubin Pfeffer Content. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

01/01/2017
K-Gr 2—Dorothea Lange saw the human misery of the Depression and photographed it, helping to bring aid to those in need. Though polio left her with a limping gait, it did not keep this remarkable woman from making a difference in the world and using her insight to tell stories with her camera. The subjects she chose—sharecroppers in the South, migrant workers in the West, and, later, Japanese Americans in internment camps—faced poverty and injustice. In condensing her life for this simple picture book introduction for young readers and listeners, Weatherford and Green have sadly flattened it. Without background, the intended audience is unlikely to recognize how extraordinary Lange was, especially as a woman working professionally in her time, as an advocate for social justice, and as an artist. Swiftly summarizing events in smoothly written prose, the author ends with Lange's encounter with Florence Owens Thompson, the migrant mother of her iconic photograph. The digitally painted illustrations have a 1930s look, but the grayscale images of a few of Lange's famous photographs lack the emotion of the originals. (There are three small reproductions in the back matter.) VERDICT For a younger audience than that of Barb Rosenstock's Dorothea's Eyes: Dorothea Lange Photographs the Truth, this might provide a bridge but is not a necessary purchase.—Kathleen Isaacs, Children's Literature Specialist, Pasadena, MD

School Library Journal

★ 2016-12-06
"One of the leading documentary photographers of the twentieth century" comes to life in Weatherford's latest historical work. Weatherford dedicates the volume to "all who dare to see," and that is exactly what Dorothea Lange did: she dared to see and documented what she saw—hunger, poverty, soup kitchens, breadlines, internment camps, and bloody strikes. Weatherford never talks down to her audience as she describes how Lange tackled these subjects, using figurative language and rich vocabulary to tell her story: "Dorothea donned a cloak of invisibility to pass the vagabonds in New York's Bowery neighborhood." She concludes the volume with a full treatment of how Lange's iconic Migrant Mother photograph came to be. Green's debut as a picture-book illustrator is brilliant. The cover perfectly captures Lange perched on a car, camera ready, surrounded by the gray landscape of the Dust Bowl. Green varies her palette, from bright scenes with Matisse-like images and colors to angular gray cityscapes to landscapes and mountain vistas done in lovely earth tones. Wisely, she doesn't try to imitate Lange's photographs too closely, simply painting them in black and white and making the images of people simple and child-friendly. A two-page "About Dorothea Lange" section concludes the volume with additional information. A fine introduction to an important American artist. (Picture book/biography. 6-10)

Kirkus Reviews

STARRED REVIEW! "Weatherford never talks down to her audience…using figurative language and rich vocabulary to tell her story…Green's debut as a picture-book illustrator is brilliant…A fine introduction to an important American artist."—Kirkus Reviews starred review

"Weatherford writes eloquently of Lange's creative drive and compassion . . . Lange was not only an artist driven to make art but an activist whose images generated awareness of suffering and injustice."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher