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.

Trainstop - Barbara Lehman

Houghton Mifflin, 2008
HC $16.00
32 pgs.
Rating:  34
Endpapers:  bright green
A wordless story

A young girl is taking a subway/train home with her parents.  As they progress through the city they pass through a tunnel and when they come out on the other side...they are out in the countryside!?  The train is stopped by a boy waving a flag.  Everyone else appears to be dozing, so the girl steps off the train, to be greeted by a hoard of....LITTLE....umm....SMALL....umm....MINIATURE kids.  Their airplane has gotten stuck  high up in a tree.  Together they figure out how to get it down, a warning comes from the train that it's about to leave, she says goodbye to her new friends, and returns to the train.  It enters another tunnel only to re-emerge back into the midst of the bustling city.  After she gets home, in flies the plane she helped save, loaded with two of her new friends and a tiny potted tree, which she plants in the yard.

Barbara Lehman has done another great piece of storytelling without uttering a single word.

Seven for a Secret - Laurence Anholt

Illustrated by Jim Coplestone
Frances Lincoln Children's Books (London), 2006
24 pages (the last two open out to a quadruple page)
Rating: 4
Front endpapers: Scenes from the city
Back endpapers: Scenes from the country (both include a mail deliverer on a bicycle

This lovely story is told entirely in letters sent back and forth between a child in the city and her grandfather in the country. It is also based on a poem/saying called "The Magpie Song," of which I am unfamiliar. Perhaps it is British, as this book seems to be...

1 for Sorrow,
2 for Joy,
3 gor a Girl,
4 for a Boy,
5 for Silver,
6 for Gold,
7 for a Secret never to be told.

The girl's father worries about money, especially with a new baby on the way, and you can see that the grandfather's health is deteriorating. Eventually, Ruby frets because she hasn't heard from her grandfather. At the end of the book, you see Ruby and her family living happily in the grandfather's country home - without him. There's also a secret (#7 of the poem) that is answered at the very end.

This is a story for kids to figure out. It is a gentle way to discuss and/or show the end of life, especially of a loved one. Good book. Lovely, with the letters superimposed atop the illustrations that completely cover the pages.