HURRY AND THE MONARCH

A migrating monarch lights on a tortoise’s back for a brief conversation, resumes her long journey to Mexico, returns to the tortoise’s garden the next Spring, and continues on to a final rest as the eggs she leaves behind hatch and grow to maturity before the tortoise’s eyes. With So’s delicately brushed illustrations capturing both the lacy energy of the butterflies and the ironically named tortoise’s slow, wrinkled dignity, this brief set of encounters will leave readers contemplating the contrast between the long seasonal rhythms of the tortoise’s world and the much quicker—also more eventful—life a monarch knows. Pair it with Sam Swopes’s equally captivating Gotta Go! Gotta Go! (2000) for a thought-provoking alternative to the fluttering hordes of conventional nonfiction on monarchs. (afterword) (Picture book. 6-8)