Hurry and the Monarchby Antoine O Flatharta; illustrated by Meilo So
A butterfly. A tortoise. Instead of thinking opposites -- the swift and the slow, the fleeting and the long-lived -- think of them as part of the same cycle of life.
Oh Gawd, I think I hear a Disney theme song in my head.
Fortunately, Flatharta's spare prose soars in this tale of a brief encounter between a migrating Monarch and the sedentary Hurry. We follow the butterfly to her winter perch in Mexico and partly back, pausing long enough to lay a clutch of eggs in Hurry's garden home in Texas.
That garden is Hurry's whole world, but Flatharta uses it to symbolize completeness, as the seasons come and go with Hurry unhurriedly witnessing its tiniest miracle: the birth of a new caterpillar and its transformation into a full-grown butterfly. The cycle is complete, with two worlds -- one vast but fleeting, the other confined but permanent -- briefly intersecting.
Plus, you learn a lot about Monarchs and their amazing, cross-country journey. Includes an end note.
So's watery splotches of color add expressionistic depth to the illustrations, matching Eastern subtlety and awareness of nature with a Western flair for bold colors.
Rating: *\*\*\*\
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