by Charlotte Caldwell (Author)
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Eleven-year-old Kirby records close observations of butterflies made in her grandparents' Charleston, South Carolina, backyard during a summer vacation that is as good as a safari.
Kirby’s grandparents have saved their butterfly-garden project for Kirby’s three-month visit. Together, they stock it with appropriate host plants and nectar flowers. At first there seem to be no results. Kirby practices with her new camera; her grandmother helps. They visit other likely habitats and a nearby butterfly garden. When caterpillars appear, Kirby’s ready. For the rest of the summer, Kirby and her friends observe and photograph the butterflies and occasional other insects they find in the backyard. Her grandparents provide background, beginning with body parts and going on through classification, identification, the food web, and survival strategies. Kirby makes notes on her oversized journal pages and adds color photographs. She documents the complete metamorphosis of a Gulf fritillary, as well as a monarch emerging from its chrysalis. A short entry about habitat conservation concludes the instructive portion of her journal, but a few more entries reveal this eager observer’s continued enthusiasm. This gentle story is the framework for a great deal of information, some of which, Kirby says, she learned in school, but is understandable in the context of her own explorations.
This pseudo-journal makes a clever invitation to a possible lifetime passion. (index) (Informational picture book. 9-12)Gr 4-6--The life cycle of butterflies is presented in detail through this attractive and readable fictitious journal. Eleven-year-old Kirby is spending the summer away from home with grandparents and keeping a journal as a school assignment. Watching butterflies in the backyard, Kirby learns about gardening, photography, and scientific observation. Color photographs, drawings, notes, and doodles enhance each page, while notes "taped" to the pages highlight definitions and facts. There is no glossary, but the index allows readers to look up definitions of terms such as morphology, predator, and nectar plants. Field observations are casually dropped into the text. The photographs will attract browsers, especially images depicting the fascinating, minute-by-minute views of a monarch butterfly cracking its way out of its chrysalis. Kirby is a personable and likable character whose diary will appeal to kids. VERDICT An entertaining and enlightening addition.--Frances E. Millhouser, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.Author and photographer of Visions and Voices: Montana's One-Room Schoolhouses, The Cow's Boy: The Making of a Real Cowboy, and The Cow's Girl: The Making of a Real Cowgirl, Charlotte Caldwell has been a member of the North American Butterfly Association, the Xerces Society, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and the North American Nature Photographers Association. Ten photographs from Kirby's Journal were chosen through a jury of professional photographers for presentation at the 2010 North American Nature Photographer's Annual Summit Show. A graduate of Middlebury College, she holds master's degrees in environmental studies from Antioch University New England and in special education from the University of Hartford. Caldwell divides her time between Charleston and her family's ranch in Clyde Park, Montana.