In the autumn of 1932, the exiled German Jewish cultural critic Walter Benjamin began writing Berliner Kindheit um Neunzehnhudert, a chronicle of his early years in the German capital. Berlin Childhood Around 1900, as it is known in English, recalls dozens of buildings, times of day, things, games, and situations that defined his early-20th-century childhood. The bittersweet, intimate vignettes focusing on minutiae (his favorite chocolate bars in pretty foil) and moods (a winter morning, the middle of the night) are the stuff of poetry.

Seven years later, Aura Rosenberg's family also left Germany. Rosenberg herself was born in America, but in 1991 she and her new family (a husband, John, and child, Carmen) returned for an extended stay. Through the lenses of her camera and the eyes of her kindergarten-aged child, she re-envisions Benjamin's Berlin. The 160 pictures in A Berlin Childhood are each accompanied by a candid caption and juxtaposed with snippets of Benjamin's original text.

Rosenberg wittily finds modern equivalents to the props in Benjamin's story. The phone in the hall, whose ringing jars the Benjamin household, becomes today's ubiquitous cell phone. An amusement based on early photography — a relic called the Kaiserpanorama — becomes a virtual-reality game.

Studying the life of a city and its inhabitants, the series reveals equal measures change and stasis. The Siegussaule, a golden monument of an angel where military men once gave victory speeches, has been moved miles and is now where a gay pride parade makes its final stop. However, the community pool (the Krumme Strasse Volksbad) looks much as it did half a century ago, and Rosenberg's daughter shares many of Benjamin's experiences. Carmen also captures butterflies, plays hide-and-seek, and indulges in fairy tales. Rosenberg's tender, layered retelling translates Benjamin for a new generation.

-Lauren McKee