Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful, nostalgic, startlingly honest
Review: Sally Mann's "Immediate Family" is startling when you first open it. Not because the children who are so often her subjects are nude much of the time, but because the scenes immediately draw you in and hold you like a feather gripped by a dirty-faced wild child. I grew up in rural Tennessee, and though I didn't have the freedom of the Mann children in some ways,I feel an affinity with them unlike any other children I've seen in these kinds of collections and was instantly transported back to my early years. My favorite pictures are "Crossed Sticks", which perfectly depicts the energy and vitality of childhood, and "Virginia at 3", which inspires both curiosity and empathy in me whenever I see it. I'm glad someone like Sally Mann is out there to portray childhood honestly and fearlessly, and I will treasure this book.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, nostalgic, startlingly honest
Review: Sally Mann's "Immediate Family" is startling when you first open it. Not because the children who are so often her subjects are nude much of the time, but because the scenes immediately draw you in and hold you like a feather gripped by a dirty-faced wild child. I grew up in rural Tennessee, and though I didn't have the freedom of the Mann children in some ways,I feel an affinity with them unlike any other children I've seen in these kinds of collections and was instantly transported back to my early years. My favorite pictures are "Crossed Sticks", which perfectly depicts the energy and vitality of childhood, and "Virginia at 3", which inspires both curiosity and empathy in me whenever I see it. I'm glad someone like Sally Mann is out there to portray childhood honestly and fearlessly, and I will treasure this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Sensitivity and photography skill at its best
Review: The pictures can stir you up. Growing up is not always beautiful. Unbelievable how this mother can capture those moments.Is it the family, is it the surrounding, or just the moments? Just once do I want to take a picture like that and I will start with my own children. Did somebody notice that the children are sometimes nude? What else would they be?
Rating:
Summary: Rich and honest images
Review: The summers of one's youth in the Blue Ridge are unmistakable. The heat comes up by ten. You head to the ponds and rivers for relief. By the blazing arc of midday you play jacks or Uno under an oak. Evening comes; hotdogs are grilled for miles, and an immense cool falls like a hush between the pines. Mann captures this reverie with utmost grace in her unalloyed images of her children. In Mann we discover a eye keen to the wonderful contrasts of black and white. Some images offer striking, ambiguous detail; others approach portraiture.
If her children's nudity draws criticism from those of a certain political stripe, I can only surmise it comes from that small, unlucky handful of Virginians who did not have the opportunity to march outside on an August dog day with nothing on. Frankly, it's all you want to wear in August whether you are eight or fifty eight.
These images tug strongly at the heartstrings of, not just those of us lucky enough to have spent our youths in rural Virginia, but anyone who has deep set memories of childhood and place. A rich and lasting collection.
Rating:
Summary: It takes you into the past
Review: This book is simply breathtaking. I honestly look through this book two or three times a week and it never gets old. The photographs are very truthful, which make them all the more great to look at. Every photo taken by Mann pictures one or all of her children playing and being what we all were once... children. When I look at this masterpiece I am immediatly blasted into the past, remembering how I would do all the same things as the Mann children are pictured doing. From laying around naked in the sun, to swimming in the creek, to even cutting my head open and having to get stitches. Mann gets all of this on film, and her children will love her all the more for her doing this for them when they are older. This book is perfect for your coffee table, and I almost always find that it brings up group remanicing when others start looking through it. Do not miss out on this book for you collection. It is wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: It takes you into the past
Review: This book is simply breathtaking. I honestly look through this book two or three times a week and it never gets old. The photographs are very truthful, which make them all the more great to look at. Every photo taken by Mann pictures one or all of her children playing and being what we all were once... children. When I look at this masterpiece I am immediatly blasted into the past, remembering how I would do all the same things as the Mann children are pictured doing. From laying around naked in the sun, to swimming in the creek, to even cutting my head open and having to get stitches. Mann gets all of this on film, and her children will love her all the more for her doing this for them when they are older. This book is perfect for your coffee table, and I almost always find that it brings up group remanicing when others start looking through it. Do not miss out on this book for you collection. It is wonderful.
Rating: 
Summary: A family snapshot album
Review: This is the second time I have to put a review into this page (the first one got lost or removed).
This book is nothing more than some snapshot in a family album. The photographs, sometimes blurred, not well taken; and on top of that, printed in small format. I imagine anyone with a $200 camera should be able to snap shots as artistic as those in here. Overall, I am very disappointed with this book. I just don't know how others could write a positive review of this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent photos...However not worthy of reviews
Review: Very diappointing. This book was advertised and reviewed giving one the impression of it as being a master piece of nude child photography as well as an excellent depiction of childhood. To me the word childhood brings forth connotations if innocence and joyous abandon. Only two photos in this book contain so much as a smile, those being " The Easter Dress" (cute) and the other being " Jessie and the deer" which depicts a very little girl standing next to a dead deer with it's throat cut in the back of a truck (not cute). All of the rest of the photos contain blank facial expressions if not down right frowns. Sally Mann's "models" at times appear to be unwilling participants of her work. " The Last Time Emmett Modeled Nude,1987" is one such example, however, it does very well capture his little boy charm. He may have by the way been nude for the photographer, but not for the camera as he is submerged from the waist down in the river. The facial expressions in many of these pictures remind me of those I have seen from the Great Depression Era or those from Third World Countries rather than life in everyday America. "Virginia at 3" and "The Wet Bed" do effectively visualize that innocence we look for in childhood pictures whether clothed or not. There were by my count only 15 nudes out of 65 photos unless you count little girls of ages 3-9 with no shirts on as nudes. There was only one nude shot of Emmett, an intentional genital shot, with melted popsicle smeared over his lower abdomen and thighs. This shot doesn't even have a face. This was not a picture of her son who just happened to be nude, but a picture of his private parts with something smeared all over him. This is what she calls art??? All I can say is it's a good thing that there's not a satisfaction guarantee with this book.
Rating:
Summary: An intimate view of childhood
Review: Very nice pictorial work. While a few of the photographs were stiff, most reflected what one would expect to see in normal country childhood. Although Mann has been the center of controversy for some of the pictures in this work, I fail to see anything evil in this work. Yes there a few pictures of her children naked, but nothing an attentive country mother or father has not see their children do at some point in time. Perhaps this is the point of contention for some viewers. They simply do not understand or identify with country living. Overall this work reflects country childhood very nicely.
Rating:
Summary: Full of emotion....a rare find
Review: When I first opened this book, I was shocked by the images of a bloody nose and a cut eye. But as I perused this book, I relized that all of these photographs showed different sides of childhood. The pain, the joy, and the unadulterated innocence. Sally Mann is truely talented in the art of photography. This book touched my heart like it has never been touched before.
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