Dorothea's Eyes: Dorothea Lange Photographs the Truth Hardcover – March 1, 2016

An interesting choice of subject for a picture book biography. Barb Rosenstock's text provides a window into challenging issues - disability, loneliness, hardship - while showing young readers how Dorothea's own sufferings might have taught her the compassion and persistence she needed to communicate with her subjects: "Dorothea's eyes help us see with our hearts." Selection of images at the back are both a historical record and a document of the rapport Lange achieved with migrant workers, an ex-slave, men on a bread line. Meticulously researched, with a timeline and extended bibliography for readers who might want to learn more. Relevant to social issues of today and the heartbreaking situations that children are asked to live and to witness.

Dorothea Lange's grey-green eyes look at the world around her and sees "dimpled shadows scattering an orange peel. Swirled-pattern pricks in a walnut sewing table. Repeating rectangles of New Jersey row homes."After her parents split up, her mother finds a job in a city library and Dorothea attends a school full of poor immigrants. She is Different and Lonely.But, she is also Watchful. Curious. So, after school she,spies 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.Dorothea pretends she's invisible all the time.And all the time, Dorothea sees with her eyes and her heart.As a teenager, she announces she is going to be a photographer. Despite her mother's resistance ("It...it isn't ladylike!") Dorothea gets work at photographer's studios and learns everything she can about cameras and darkrooms.She loves faces, but is restless to see places too. She sets off from New Jersey to travel around the world but stays in San Fransisco after her money is stolen. She starts her own portrait studio and becomes successful. She marries and has children. But, she keeps asking herself, Am I using my eyes and my heart?One day during the Depression she looks outside her window and sees men searching for work. She focuses on one man in particular and Dorothea's heart won't let her stop.Dorothea leaves her comfortable life and takes her camera on the road. She scans dirt lanes, peers down back paths, and squints up broken steps. Fathers stoop in fields, working for pennies. Mothers nurse sick children, lying thirsty in makeshift tents. Whole families in jalopies--blown out by the dust storms wracking the land. Her heart knows all about people the world ignores.Dorothea doesn't just photograph the people she meets. She understands how ashamed and invisible they feel. For five years despite a leg that always hurts, she photographs people for the world to see. "The jobless. The hungry. The homeless."Newspapers and magazines publish these pictures. Dorothea's eyes won't let the country look away. 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.

This is a complex text for savvy picture book readers—at points lyrical and abstract, at other points literal in details about Lange’s life. Rosenstock has created an intimate portrait of Lange while also creating a picture of this time period. There’s a lot happening in the book that would be better understood with some background knowledge about the Depression—perhaps as part of an integrated unit of study.. That said – it’s a powerfully told story with strong themes—disability, invisibility, loneliness, curiosity, knowing with your eyes and/or your heart. This would make for good reading and rereading and thorough discussion with intermediate grade students. The book ends with photos we all know Lange for including Migrant Mother. There’s a great author’s note about Lange at the end of the book with a timeline. I totally agree with the audience age recommended – 2nd through 7th grade. Rosenstock has written several picture book biographies that are worthy of our students’ time.

A picture book biography of photographer Dorothea Lange, who overcame disabilities suffered because of polio, defied convention by becoming a photographer even though she was a woman, and stepped outside the studio to photograph the lonely and forgotten.Another great picture book biography about someone who overcame their own difficulties, and used a "small" skill to help make other lives better. I recognized several of her photographs, but didn't know about the woman behind them or the impact she had during the Great Depression and beyond.

Beautiful. Poetic. Compassionate. Depth. We see it with our eyes and our hearts. Easily one of the best picture books I've ever encountered.

Fabulous.

Beautiful story