PHOTOGRAPHIC: The Life of Graciela Iturbide by Isabel Quintero.  Illus.by  Zeke Pena.  Los Angeles, CA:  Getty Publications, 2018.  96p.  ISBN 978-194744000-5 hc. $19.95  Gr. 7-12  YA NF

This creative biography is formatted as a graphic novel and will appeal to teens.  The book begins by introducing Graciela's philosophy about photography, which captures the stark reality of life in black and white.  Her interest in photography was encouraged by her father, an amateur photographer who bought her a Brownie camera.  After rejecting the traditional life of Mexican wife and mother in favor of her passion for photography, she became an apprentice to established photographer, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, and explored the Mexican countryside.  She became obsessed with photos of birds and with death, then moved on to document immigrant communities in the United States and pictorial studies of various villages in her native Mexico.  Her work resides in art galleries across the U.S.  Illustrator Zeke Pena incorporates 24 black and white photos from Graciela's collection with his black and white graphics, sometimes placing a line drawing next to the original photo for visual impact.
Lynette Suckow, Superiorland Preview Center, Marquette, MI