Glasswings: A Butterfly's Story - Elisa Kleven

Illustrated by the author

Dial Books for Young Readers (Penguin), 2013

HC $16.99

32 pages

Goodreads rating: 5.00 (But there are only three ratings to average so far- and mine's one of them)

My rating: 5

Endpapers: lime green with various sized outlines of Glasswing butterflies in white

"Claire was a Glasswing butterfly.

Her wings, as clear as windows,

let the world shine through."

But a huge wind sweeps her away from her family in the country to a street in the city, where there aren't many flowers from which she can sip nectar,  A friendly pigeon and ladybug show her a tiny community garden, but the flowers are sparse.  She sips and flits from flower to flower, day after day, and the garden blooms and flourishes with her help.

There's a prologue that tells a little about Glasswings (they inhabit Central and South America).  I wonder why it wasn't put at the end of the story?

I'm an Elisa Kleven fan, so perhaps I'm biased, but I love her work - her collaged illustrations are wonderful. On one page, the hillside of tall city buildings is created from cut rectangles from the insides of business envelopes and water colors. Mmmmm. The windows of the dull gray buildings are alive with colorful life - curtains, people, quilt-y shades and brightly colored clothing. I could just look and look and look. And, there's a happy, satisfying ending to a relatively simple, thoughtful story that also contains a message - and lesson - or two.

14. Flight Behavior - Barbara Kingsolver

Audio read by the author, beautifully!

15 discs (16 hrs. 56 min.)

2012, Harper Audio, $30.95

437 pgs.

Written for adults

Finished April 14, 2013

Genre: CRF

Goodreads Rating: 3.79

My Rating 4.5

Acquired TPPL

Setting: contemporary Appalachian Tennessee

1^st sentence/s:  "A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture.  Or so it seemed for now, to a woman with flame-colored hair who marched uphill to meet her demise.+

My comments:  My rating is actually a 4.5. Why not 5? Because there's just a little too much scientific explanation in places. However, I'm glad I listened to the book instead of reading it, because I would have skimmed over those parts if I were reading and while listening was forced to listen to them - and they were interesting, thought-provoking, and worrisome. The added plus of Barbara Kingsolver's wonderful voice and accent made me upset when the book was over. I wanted more, more, more! At the beginning of the book I was quite unsure whether I'd like the protagonist, Dellarobia  It was a weird introduction to a character - someone sneaking off to cheat on her husband. However, the story was outstanding, and incredibly beautifully written. And tiny, red-haired Dellarobia was a superb character. Kingsolver is my favorite writer. I don't know anyone who can put words together like she does. Global warming. Monarch butterflies. Hardship and hard times in Appalachia. Mothering. Really good mothering. Interesting, REAL, well-fleshed characters. Honesty. Hmmm....I loved it.

Goodreads Review: Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at seventeen. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she has settled for permanent disappointment but seeks momentary escape through an obsessive flirtation with a younger man. As she hikes up a mountain road behind her house to a secret tryst, she encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. She can only understand it as a cautionary miracle, but it sparks a raft of other explanations from scientists, religious leaders, and the media. The bewildering emergency draws rural farmers into unexpected acquaintance with urbane journalists, opportunists, sightseers, and a striking biologist with his own stake in the outcome. As the community lines up to judge the woman and her miracle, Dellarobia confronts her family, her church, her town, and a larger world, in a flight toward truth that could undo all she has ever believed.  Flight Behavior takes on one of the most contentious subjects of our time: climate change. With a deft and versatile empathy Kingsolver dissects the motives that drive denial and belief in a precarious world.

My, Oh My - A Butterfly! - Tish Rabe

All About Butterflies
Illustrated by Aristides Ruiz & Joe Mathieu
The Cat in the Hat Learning Library, Random House, 2007
HC $8.00
45 pgs.

I'm the Cat in the Hat
if you look in the sky,
you might see a butterfly
fluttering by.

This book takes a child through the stages that create a butterfly, from egg to caterpillar, growing and losing and eating its skin; to hanging and becoming a chrysalis and emerging as a butterfly. It shows the differences between a butterfly chrysalis and a moth cocoon. It teaches about color and camouflage and then starts telling about different species - ending with 10 pages describing the habits of the monarch butterfly.

A fascinating book for young kids!

The book ends with a glossary (antennae, chrysalis, cocoon, foe, nectar, nutritious, oyamel, proboscis, protein) and a list of other books for kids about butterflies.

The Monarch's Progress - Avis Harley

Poetry
Poems with Wings
Wordsong, 2008
$16.95
32 pgs.
Rating: 3
Endpapers: Monarch orange

Different types of poetry (acrostic, limerick, couplet, concrete, haiku, triplet) create the forms for 18 poems about the life span of a monarch butterfly. Accompanying illustrations (by the poet) are simple, bright, and reveal more about the subject, as well as notes at the end that give more scientific information about each poem.

She cleverly uses ACROSTIC well, a great model to show kids:

Monarch Beginnings

No bigger than the head of a pin, though
Enough to house a lodger within. Oh!
What a drama about to begin!

Exquisite gem on a milkweed leaf – your
Gorgeous shell-life is all too brief, for
Growing inside is a caterpillar thief…

I really enjoyed this abecedarian poem, really well-done!:

Wintering Over

Amazing
Blazing
Clusters
Decorate
Entire
Forest
Groves.


Hanging
In
Jeweled
Kingdoms
Like
Magnificent
Native
Ornaments,
Patterns
Quicken
Remote
Slopes.

This
Unique,
Velvet-
Winged
X-odus
Yields
Zillions.