TRAVELING BUTTERFLIES

The drama of a 2,500-mile migration as undertaken with the delicate wings of the monarch butterfly.

Spare, clean text appropriate for preschoolers and early-elementary students provides factual descriptions of the vast distance traveled by this striking insect. Beginning as a tiny egg, one butterfly grows and then joins a throng that eventually turns the trees in Mexico a deep orange. Shingu evokes the same peace readers feel watching floating monarchs, giving them an aerial view of the annual migration, over oceans and cities, forests and streams. Set against monochrome scenes of blue, gray, and green, the iconic black-and-orange butterflies fly in formation over vast distances. Shingu captures the ephemeral quietness of the beautiful monarch in every illustration, whether close-ups or long views that silhouette them against an impossibly blue sky. The bright yellow book jacket, with five butterflies lifting upward on stained-glass wings, has the same strong and gentle quality. Young readers will learn to recognize this special creature, while older readers will marvel at the magnitude of her journey. The backmatter describes the species, offering astonishing facts: this tiny migrant weighs just over half a gram.

Combining the precision of science with the grace of poetry and lovely illustrations, this book is a natural for budding etymologists.