I Wanna Take Me a Picture: Teaching Photography and Writing to Children [Paperback]

Wendy Ewald (Author), Alexandra Lightfoot (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 17, 2002

Written for parents and teachers, I Wanna Take Me a Picture is an accessible and practical guide to getting children involved in photography. Through a series of lessons-from self-portraiture to representing their dreams-it teaches everything a beginner needs to know: how to compose a picture, set up a darkroom, and develop film.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Ewald's project is wonderful because it lets kids speak for themselves; instead of being passive subjects for the lens, they eagerly harness it to the engine of their imaginations. --Andy Grundberg, The New York Times

"What's striking about Ewald's work is not just the effect she has on her students but the results they achieve together." --Francine Prose, O: The Oprah Magazine

"Young people know joy, sorrow, and loss. By looking at their photographs and talking about making them, they begin to realize that their lives have importance. This book is needed!" --Deborah Willis, author of Reflections in Black

"A treasure of photos taken by the author and her pupils, plus stirring testimonies from children around the globe who faced tragedy through the lens of a camera." --City Limits

About the Author

Wendy Ewald is artist-in-residence at the John Hope Franklin Center, a research associate at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and a senior fellow at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School University. She lives with her husband and son in the Hudson Valley, New York.

Alexandra Lightfoot received her Ed.D. from Harvard University in 1998.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (September 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807031410
• ISBN-13: 978-0807031414
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.4 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #154,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great resource for teachers!, September 3, 2002

By 

Judith Monroe (Antelope, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: I Wanna Take Me a Picture: Teaching Photography and Writing to Children (Hardcover)

This book guides you through teaching literacy through photography to children, for which Ms. Ewald is well known. It is a fantastic resource for someone who wants to really teach the heart and soul of photography, as well as visual literacy - a great introduction to photography but even a seasoned photographer can learn something new from this book. Ms. Ewald takes you through her curriculum step by step as she would teach her students and gives you the tools and tips to pass it on. This is not a technical "how to" photo book, there are plenty of those out there, this book is truly a gem. I have used Ms. Ewald's book as the basis for my own workshops with children and I now have adults asking me to take the course! I can't say enough great things about it...

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reading Pictures, February 18, 2005

By 

Jaylyn (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Wanna Take Me a Picture: Teaching Photography and Writing to Children (Paperback)

This book is an outstanding guide for the art teacher eager to teach not only creative photography, but how to connect, understand, and tell a story through a picture. This book teaches expression through exercises with video and poetry, how to read a photograph, to have children from different cultures learn from each other from self portrait exercises in the shoes of different ethnicities.
Although I found this to be extremely interesting, this book isn't what I had expected. I am not a teacher, but I have a child interested in photography and since I am not a photographer myself I was looking for a guide for us both to learn and enjoy together. This book, although enjoyable, shows examples for different assignments for more of a class room setting, not a parent and child learning together . Also this is a book with only a couple pages of actual images and more text. I do feel this book is a blessing for teachers who may be looking for a creative and meaningful experience for their students to express themselves through art.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous!, January 3, 2007

By 

MileStones (Central Coast, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: I Wanna Take Me a Picture: Teaching Photography and Writing to Children (Paperback)

I absolutely love this book! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The story is captivating, and I find myself lost in the text.

But I did not purchase this book for leisure reading. I was searching for a book that is an instructional guide to photographic projects for children. This book is not written in the step-by-step format I was looking for. I wanted fully layed out lesson plans, etc. But I was not dissappointed. All of the information I needed on conducting photo projects with kids is in this book. It is just more of a story format. A VERY enjoyable story!