Dorothea’s Eyes fills a gap. Here, at last, is a biography of the great photographer Dorothea Lange.

In her straightforward text, Rosenstock tells the story of Lange’s life. She traces how Lange’s childhood polio gave her keen empathy. We see Lange face struggles as the child of a single mother. We watch her insist that photography is her path, even without family support. Finally, we see her shift attention away from her successful and lucrative photography studio. She begins to photograph real people in challenging circumstances.

My favorite part of the book was the reproductions of some of her iconic and moving photographs on the final page of text.

If you want to delve into more of her photographs, check out the Library of Congress website. It has excellent resources for teachers, homeschoolers and individuals. You can find lesson plans and primary sources (including Lange photos) about the Great Depression here. Here you can see multiple shots from the session in which “Migrant Mother” was made.

There have lately been other interesting stories about photographs and photographers. If you want to delve deeper into this very modern art, try looking at these books.

Jazz Day: The Making of a Famous Photograph, by Roxane Orgill. Candlewick: 2016.

Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America, by Carole Boston Weatherford. Whitman: 2015.

Coming soon! Antsy Ansel: Ansel Adams, a Life in Nature, by Cindy Jenson-Elliott. Henry Holt: September 2016.

Dorothea’s Eyes by Barb Rosenstock, illustrated by Gerard DuBois. Calkins Creek: 2016..

I participate in the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge hosted by Kid Lit Frenzy.