Monarch Butterflies is a richly illustrated, large-format book that celebrates North America's most recognized butterfly and educates children and families about what they can do to help protect these beloved pollinators from the impacts of habitat loss and climate change. Monarchs are a favorite and familiar North American butterfly, and their incredible annual migration has captured the popular imagination for generations. As populations of monarchs decline dramatically due to habitat loss and climate change, the general public's interest in and enthusiasm for protecting these beloved pollinators has skyrocketed. Through accessible text and colourful, engaging illustrations, Monarch Butterflies presents rich, detailed information about the monarchs' life cycle, anatomy, and the wonders of their signature migration, as well as how to raise monarchs at home and the cultural significance of monarchs in Day of the Dead celebrations. The book broaches how human behaviour has harmed monarchs and offers substantive ways for kids to help make a positive difference. Solution-oriented ideas include converting lawns into native plant gardens, citizen science efforts such as tagging migrating monarchs and participating in population counts, and supporting organisations that work to conserve butterflies. AGES: 7 to 10 AUTHOR: Ann Hobbie is the chair of the board of directors at the Monarch Joint Venture, a national partnership of federal and state agencies, non-governmental organisations, businesses, and academic programs working together to conserve the monarch butterfly migration. She has more than 20 years of experience teaching children, training teachers, and writing curriculum related to monarchs, schoolyard ecology, and schoolyard gardening. Hobbie holds an MA in curriculum and instruction. In addition to working with children and teachers, she specialised in education policy for a nonprofit helping the public understand and support public education in Minnesota. She lives in St. Paul.
Monarch Butterflies is a beautifully illustrated guide to the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. Due out 2nd March 2020 from Storey Publishing, it's 48 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.
Butterflies are perennial favorites, fascinating to watch and beautiful. Currently facing massive habitat loss and sensitive to climate changes and pollution, they're disappearing at an alarming rate. This book is aimed at young readers (1-2nd grade) and discusses the life cycle of the monarch butterfly in age appropriate and accessible language. The illustrations are clear and colorful, and support the simple text well. There is a cool tutorial showing the different types of milkweed which can be planted to support and provide habitat. (I'm a very keen gardener and a huge fan of natural/native planting and I learned quite a bit from the milkweed tutorial). There's also some cool info about tagging and counting monarchs for data collection as well as raising and releasing them.
The author has included a useful abbreviated glossary as well as a links list for further reading and conservation information.
Well written, engaging, and factually accurate, this would make a superlative selection for school or classroom library, home library, or gift for a young reader who likes animals and nature science. This book would have attracted 7 year old me in an instant.
Five stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
