Hurry and the Monarch
Kindergarten-Grade 2-Hurry, a tortoise, exchanges quips with a monarch butterfly as she stops in Wichita Falls, TX, while migrating from Canada to Mexico. The encounter, told in the present tense, frames a simple, fairly straightforward account of the monarch's long journey and life cycle. The stay in Mexico gets brief coverage. The butterfly returns in the spring, lands on Hurry's shell, lays her eggs on nearby milkweed, and flies off for her final rest. The tortoise then watches the transformation of one of the new caterpillars as it grows, forms a chrysalis, and emerges as a new monarch. The writing includes some jocular dialogue but is sometimes awkward in construction. So's shimmering watercolors are quite lovely, melding a bit of humor, broad impressionistic strokes, and fairly realistic sketches of some monarchs and caterpillars. A general map serving as front and back end pages broadly indicates this monarch's journey. Texas and Wichita Falls are the only marked places, though the text also refers to Eagle Pass, the Rio Grande, and the towns of Sweetwater and Stillwater. A final two-page essay for adults adds more details on monarchs.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, BostonCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.