Frank Lloyd Wright and His New American Architecture

I've recently started training to become a docent at the Darwin D. Martin House on Jewett in Buffalo. The home, designed by Wright, is in the process of being restored. In an effort to become more well-rounded in the background of the beautiful home I will be presenting to tourists, I selected a biography of Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright and His New American Architecture. This text was written by Bob Kann and is part of the Badger Biography Series created by the Wisconsin Historical Society. Other subjects in this series include Harley and the Davidsons, Richard Bong- the WWII flying Ace, the Ringling Brothers, and several other famous Wisconsin-ites. I feel like most middle school libraries in Wisconsin probably already own this series of biographies, but it would be a productive series for other middle and elementary school librarians to look into. We often assign biography projects where we ask students to study a famous person and they come back with only contemporary famous people. The members of this series might help us enlargen the world of our students.

In Frank Lloyd Wright and His New American Architecture, I learned a great deal about the life of Wright, his inspirations, and his struggles. I felt like some of the more dirty aspects of Wright's life were hinted at, but readers were focused more on accomplishments, like building a 600 room hotel that could survive one of the greatest earthquakes in Japanese history. The Martin House is not mentioned in the discussion of Prarie architecture, but there is extensive discussion of the Robie House, which is similarly designed, but in Illinois. The book also follows all of the conventions of non-fiction by including a table of contents, glossary, timeline, further reading and even reading group activities.

Both the Badger Biography Series and Frank Lloyd Wright and His New Merican Architecture are thoughtfully crafted to inform students in a constructive way.