Caldecott-winning author to speak on campus

Before the snow melts, it is being celebrated by university libraries with a lecture and discussion titled “Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!”

The talk features Jacqueline Briggs Martin, author of the award-winning children’s book “Snowflake Bentley.” Martin will give a reading at the UW–Madison Memorial Library, room 124, at 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 4.

Martin’s book, which was illustrated by Mary Azarian, won the 1999 Caldecott Medal for the year’s most distinguished picture book. The book chronicles the life of Wilson A. Bentley, a Vermont dairy farmer who was the first person to photograph snow crystals in the late 1800s.

The following campus libraries are hosting related exhibits: Geology and Geophysics, Kohler Art, Middleton Health Sciences, Memorial, Schwerdtfeger Space Science and Engineering, and Wendt Engineering. Each exhibit includes works by Bentley, which were acquired as lantern slides in the early 1900s by a UW physics professor named, ironically, Benjamin Snow.

The lecture is sponsored by the UW–Madison General Library System and the School of Education Cooperative Children’s Book Center. Martin also will give a talk at Canterbury Booksellers, 315 W. Gorham, at 11 a.m., Saturday, Feb. 5.