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Avec ses quatre albums pour enfants publiés  à partir de 1968, Sandra Weiner poursuit l'oeuvre de la photographie réaliste de la Photo League des années 30-40, qui voulait montrer l'Amérique, ses villes et  leurs habitants, à travers des histoires individuelles.It’s wings that make birds fly  est le premier. Otis, enfant noir, habitant de New York, raconte son monde, ses joies, ses malheurs, ses rencontres,  les désordres de sa vie et sa quête du bonheur :  "I like people. I like my sisters, my brothers. I likes my father and grandmother. I like my mother and my cousins and my aunt".La photographie en noir et blanc témoigne, montre le désordre ambiant, la misère, mais aussi les complicités, les amitiés. C'est le vrai Otis qui est photographié, comme le texte est le fruit des enregistrements des discussions de l'auteur avec lui et ses amis.Sandra Weiner fait le portrait d'un personnage et à travers lui, celui d'un monde. Le livre n'est pas un pamphlet pour autant. Il montre au lecteur, à travers une vie particulière, le monde qui l'entoure, avec l'espoir, comme le dit le photographe Gordon Parks, qui  signe l'introduction : “And I hope that we, you and I, will come to know our responsibility toward helping Otis into a manhood of dignity”.Le lecteur-spectateur de la vie d'Otis a rapidement le sentiment que  les photos et le texte sont dépourvus d'une promesse de meilleur, impression qui se confirme lorsque l'on apprend en dernière page qu' Otis est mort, peu de temps  après la sortie du livre, dans un accident de rue.Sur le site du Centre International de la photographie de New York :"Born in the town of Drohiczan, Sandra Weiner immigrated with her parents to the United States in 1928. She met the photographer Dan Weiner in 1940 and took photography courses from him as well as from Paul Strand at the Photo League; she and Weiner were married in 1942. In 1947 she began working with her husband on his freelance assignments for Fortune, LIFE, Sports Illustrated, Harper's Bazaar, and other publications, and continued collaborating until his death in a plane crash in 1959. Sandra Weiner worked as a picture editor for Sports Illustrated afterwards, and in the late 1960s wrote children's books, which she illustrated with her own photographs. The first, It's Wings That Make Birds Fly (1968), included an introduction by Gordon Parks, and was followed by Small Hands, Big Hands (1970), They Call Me Jack (1973), and I Want to be a Fisherman (1977). Weiner taught photography at New York University and at the City University of New York. Her work has been exhibited at several New York galleries, the Akron Museum of Art in 1996, and the Port Washington Public Library.Sandra Weiner is the author of many exceptional pictures constituting a distinctive body of work. Her acute perception of individual character, especially that of children, and her subtle rendering of neighborhood atmospheres make her documentary pictures of New York some of the most insightful works of their time and genre."&#160;&#160;