The Monarch's Progress: Poems with Wings
Grade 3–6—"The butterfly was there/before any human art was made." Harley celebrates the beauty and life cycle of monarchs in 18 poems written in a variety of forms and illustrated with realistic, sometimes impressionistic, colored-pencil drawings. To emphasize the four stages of butterfly metamorphosis, four acrostics highlight appropriate terms spelled out in the first letter of each line of poetry ("NEW EGG," "CATERPILLAR," "CHRYALIS," and "IMAGO"). Other structures include haiku, sonnet, limerick, and a delightful abecedarian titled "Wintering Over" ("Amazing/Blazing/Clusters/Decorate/Entire/Forest/Groves...This/Unique,/Velvet-/Winged/X-odus/Yields/Zillions"). Arranged in a long sleek column, this selection is paired with a fine view of a dense cluster of monarchs in a tree in Mexico "Hanging/In/Jeweled/Kingdoms." An author's introduction comments on the structure of some of the poems and invites readers to describe a favorite butterfly in verse. Concluding notes touch back on each entry with bits of factual material about these insects and their behavior. The layout's generous white space adds inviting emphasis and clarity to both text and artwork. This collection offers versatile uses for poetry reading, writing lessons, or introducing natural-history units.—Margaret Bush, Simmons College, BostonCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.