Isabel's House of Butterflies (Sierra Club Books (Sierra))
Kindergarten-Grade 3-In Michoacan, Mexico, one particular 300-square-mile area provides a natural sanctuary for monarch butterflies, but due to logging the trees are disappearing. Removal of habitat equals removal of species, and this sparely told story puts the links between climate, habitat, and poverty into stark focus. Eight-year-old Isabel and her family have one treasure: an oyamel tree where every fall thousands of monarchs come to winter. They love the tree, but one year a long, hot summer is followed by an equally long, hot fall. Her father, a subsistence farmer, cannot make ends meet, not even with help from the tourists who come to see the butterflies. He decides he must cut down the tree and sell the wood. In her distress, the girl comes up with an idea: selling fresh tortillas in the shape of butterflies to the tourists. The book ends on this note of suspense. Will the idea work? Will the tree be saved? Similar in tone to Lynne Cherry's The Great Kapok Tree (Harcourt, 1990), this discussion starter gives a nod to global warming and raises the uncomfortable truth that sometimes the survival of people means the destruction of the environment. Guevara's heavily framed, textured paintings in somber tones still communicate the delight Isabel takes in her world. A thought-provoking introduction to problems that affect all of us.Ann Welton, Grant Elementary School, Tacoma, WACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.