The Traveling Camera: Lewis Hine and the Fight to End Child Labor

Writing in simple sensory verse, Hinrichs takes on the first-person perspective to tell the story of Lewis Wicks Hine (1874–1940), a white photographer whose pictures exposed exploitative labor conditions for children, aiming to end child labor by showing “their hard work,/ their hard lives,/ to start/ people thinking,/ to spark/ a desire to help,/ to ignite/ change.” From canneries to cranberry bogs, shoe factories to cotton mills, Hine travels the country, photographing youth laborers, intending to make observers of his exhibitions consider the children’s plight more deeply. Hinrichs indicates Hine’s own words in italics, interweaving them into each spread’s lengthy poems. Garland’s evocative illustrations feature detailed, textured spreads of humans of varying skin tones, mostly white, with Hine’s real photographs set into a few spreads. A compelling primer on art as activism. Back matter features notes to the reader and a timeline. Ages 6–9. (Sept.)