Antsy Ansel: Ansel Adams, a Life in Nature
by Cindy Jenson-Elliott; illus. by Christy Hale
Primary    Ottaviano/Holt    32 pp.
9/16    978-1-62779-082-6    $17.99

This peppy picture book biography of nature photographer Ansel Adams describes an “antsy” young boy whose propensity to get into trouble was allayed only by being in the great outdoors. Sonorous language, including alliteration, brings readers close to Ansel’s experiences in nature, such as on the Golden Gate beach near his San Francisco home, where “gusting gales pushed and pulled; salt spray strung his cheeks; surf pounded the sand — BOOM!”; or at quiet Lobos Creek, which “whispered and winked, flickered and flew, shimmered and shone.” As Ansel struggled in early-twentieth-century traditional school, his father thought that Ansel needed not “discipline” but “open air”; he was right. Homeschooling allowed Ansel more time outdoors, and his education came as much from exploring the outside world as from books. A trip to Yosemite Valley and the gift of a camera at age fourteen set the boy toward becoming the “photographic visionary” who documented America’s beauty and gave the U.S. government and people everywhere a front-row seat to remarkable landscapes in Yosemite and beyond. Hale’s collages, a mix of traditional and digital techniques in an earthy palette, make excellent use of textures in depicting the natural world. Orientation and design elements, too, are thoughtfully employed; a vertical spread of Adams hiking the High Sierra, for example, captures its “icy white” and “breathless height” marvelously. An author’s note, with appended resources, further discusses the man’s life and legacy as well as showing two photographs that exemplify Adams’s artistic range (Clearing Winter Storm and Leaves, Mills College).

From the November/December 2016 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.