Review by Booklist Review
Harker's Barns (2003) are called icons in the subtitle, too, but they don't command quite the reverence that the subjects of this book do reverence and a bit of awe. Or is it guilt? Harker's exterior photos of a couple dozen long-retired schools tend to look slightly up at them, like a boy trudging to study on a beautiful day, respectful of the temple of knowledge but all too aware of his own ignorance. Sometimes there is more than veneration in an image. That of Iowa's first school, in Keokuk, looks like a mystical vision, thanks to Harker's marvelous, perhaps breeze- and definitely cloud-assisted blurring of the foliage behind the wee building. Those of completely abandoned and decaying structures, like the nearly roofless Moffitt's Corner School, also resonate, somehow, with the atmosphere of the past; the ruins in a field near Mediapolis virtually keen with it. The handful of interiors and exterior details two big summoning bells, a storm-cellar door, a stripped and abandoned old bus in contrast seems deafeningly silent. Such pictures are why black-and-white photography persists.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2008 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
