Hurry and the Monarch

"A [Canada-to-Mexico] migrating butterfly provides Hurry, a Texas tortoise, with perspective on the world beyond his garden. 'Maybe one day, you'll break out of that shell, grow wings, and fly away, ' the butterfly remarks to Hurry. 'I doubt it, ' he replies, then contentedly settles down to hibernate. He wakes in the spring to see the same butterfly alight on a milkweed plant depositing an egg, which hatches, grows, and metamorphoses under Hurry's watchful eye. . . . Together with its informative afterword, this is a particularly attractive, affecting introduction to the wonder of species diversity and the elegant continuum of life."—Booklist, Starred