Allen Young is Curator of Zoology and vice-president of collections, research, and public programs at the Milwaukee Public Museum, in Wisconsin. The book, published in December 2000, is organized by season from spring to winter and features insects such as butterflies, cicadas, wasps, fireflies, katydids, and topics such as spring peepers, bats, frost, wildflowers, cornfields and forests, cacooning, and a winter moon. Two familiar harbingers of spring are the mourning cloak butterfly and the red-winged blackbird. Young describes some childhood experiences and his discoveries regarding butterflies and he covers the time from mating to egg-laying, then hatching, caterpillar appearance, and the many habits and activities. A discussion of spring peepers leads to comments on the loss of frogs and amphibians.
Milkweed survives winter but monarchs return to the tropics.
Farming and weed control affect the food supply of monarchs and an essay appears on that topic. Midsummer brings cicadas. Annual cicadas are different from periodical cicadas. There are 3 species and they reappear every 13 or 17 years. They provide food for birds and they need trees to survive.