Prompted, perhaps, by overcrowding in its home in the Yucatan, a cloudless sulphur butterfly journeys through the rainforest, over the Gulf of Mexico and across a helpful map of the U.S., passing ponies on Assateague Island and sheltering from a storm in New York’s Central Park, before arriving in southern Vermont, where it will mate and die. Its offspring are shown hatching on a cassia plant in the garden where they will spend their lives. The careful reader of the backmatter will realize that this is a one-way journey; unlike the monarch, these butterflies do not fly south, but this is not stated directly in the text. Realistic watercolor illustrations cross page boundaries and details escape into the margins and the area reserved for the evocative text, an imitation of the butterflies’ action as they erupt from their normal habitat and spread northward. Young readers will come away with a sense of wonder and admiration for the frail creature’s remarkable flight. (author’s note) (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-9)
Pub Date: April 30, 2006
ISBN: 1-59078-082-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2006
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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