Mann herself considered these photographs to be "natural through the eyes of a mother, since she has seen her children in every state: happy, sad, playful, sick, bloodied, angry and "even" naked". Deborah Chambers, in her work on family photo albums, reflects on their idyllic nature but also argues they rarely convey the actual experience of the family. Mann's work takes these idyllic photos meant for semi-private consumption and brings them to the public sphere. By working collaboratively with her children Mann uses these idealised family photos to create a narrative from her children's' perspectives. Critics agreed, saying her "vision in large measure [is accurate, and a welcome corrective to familiar notions of youth as a time of unalloyed sweetness and innocence", and that the book "created a place that looked like Eden, then cast upon it the subdued and shifting light of nostalgia, sexuality and death". When "Time" magazine named her "America's Best Photographer" in 2001, it wrote: