A review by librarymouse
The Bluest of Blues: Anna Atkins and the First Book of Photographs by Fiona Robinson

informative lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

4.25

The Bluest of Blues: Anna Atkins and the First Book of Photographs is an easily consumable account of Anna Atkins's life and work. Little is known about Anna Atkins's early life, so Fiona Robinson had to surmise what it may have been like from her father's work and common pass times in her community during the years she was a child. I knew there weren't many biographies written about Anna Atkins, but I didn't know that it was mostly due to her signature, A.A., meant that many of her works were attributed to "Anonymous Author". Eventually I'd like to finish reading Sun Gardens, a biography of Atkins accompanying a to scale collection of her cyanotypes, but I'm glad I picked up this children's biography of her. It had a bibliography in the back with some interesting further reading and instructions about how to cyanotype at home. The illustrations have a limited color palate and beautifully integrate sections of Atkins's cyanotypes with colored pencil illustrations. I especially enjoy the motif of a poppy showing up as one of the first flowers she pressed with her father as a child. It's a fictional account that packs a lot of emotion into the cyanotype of a poppy she did just after her father's death. The only colors in the book are the white of the page, two blue tones, red, and sparing sections of black paired with the red for impact among the blue. Overall, one of my favorite children's books, and I'm glad it exists as a resource for more people to learn about Anna Atkins.
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