BUTTERFLY COUNT

Butterfly fans will flutter happily about this tale of a child joining the annual nationwide butterfly census in hopes of spotting a once-common, now-rare regal fritillary. Identification guide in hand, Amy floats through the fields of wildflowers and high grasses that used to be her great-great-grandmother Nora Belle’s farm, and is now run by a prairie reclamation project. She sees mourning cloaks and monarchs, painted ladies, red admirals, and black swallowtails—but not the fritillary that was Nora Belle’s favorite. To Amy’s evocative roll call, Kratter (A World Above the Clouds, not reviewed, etc.) adds naturalistic watercolor portraits, both in leafy natural settings and in a final section of captioned close-ups. Collard (A Firefly Biologist at Work, not reviewed, etc.) brings Amy’s quest to a satisfying end in the old family plot where Nora Belle is buried—one of the few patches of prairie that has never been plowed. He adds more about the yearly Fourth of July Butterfly Count at the end, along with safety-conscious advice for young naturalists interested in attracting and observing these flighty wonders. (Picture book. 7-10)