Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | EASY BUN | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
With the help of her grandfather, a little girl makes a house for a larva and watches it develop before setting it free. And when the girl grows old, the butterflies come back to return her kindness.
Author Notes
Eve Bunting was born in 1928 in Maghera, Ireland, as Anne Evelyn Bunting. She graduated from Northern Ireland's Methodist College in Belfast in 1945 and then studied at Belfast's Queen's College. She emigrated with her family in 1958 to California, and became a naturalized citizen in 1969.
That same year, she began her writing career, and in 1972, her first book, "The Two Giants" was published. In 1976, "One More Flight" won the Golden Kite Medal, and in 1978, "Ghost of Summer" won the Southern California's Council on Literature for Children and Young People's Award for fiction. "Smokey Night" won the American Library Association's Randolph Caldecott Medal in 1995 and "Winter's Coming" was voted one of the 10 Best Books of 1977 by the New York Times.
Bunting is involved in many writer's organizations such as P.E.N., The Authors Guild, the California Writer's Guild and the Society of Children's Book Writers. She has published stories in both Cricket, and Jack and Jill Magazines, and has written over 150 books in various genres such as children's books, contemporary, historic and realistic fiction, poetry, nonfiction and humor.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this somewhat treacly memoir, a girl saves a caterpillar, "a small black creature/ like a tiny worm,/ ...from a greedy jay/ who wanted it/ for lunch." Her grandpa explains that she has found a larva that will become a butterfly, and the two make a shoebox home for it, decorated with cut-paper flowers and topped with a sky-blue lid and a "curve of rainbow/ like a hug/ to keep her safe." When the caterpillar transforms into a painted lady, the girl lets it go. Many years later, when the granddaughter has reached her grandfather's age, butterflies continue to flock to her garden. Bunting precisely documents the raising of the butterfly, but, unlike her other intergenerational tale, I Have an Olive Tree (reviewed above), this story conveys little of the relationship between the girl and her grandfather. Much of the connection between the girl and her rescued pet comes through at the end, thanks to Shed's (also teamed with Bunting for Dandelions) close-up paintings in a smudgy pastel palette that connects past and present with an air of timelessness. A step-by-step guide to raising a butterfly closes the book. Ages 5-8. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
After a girl rescues a larva from a hungry jay, she and her grandfather make a home for it and watch it change into a Painted Lady butterfly. The poetic text is accompanied by handsome paintings that convey the girl's feelings about keeping and eventually releasing the butterfly. Bunting includes detailed instructions for making a butterfly house. From HORN BOOK Fall 1999, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Ages 5^-7. In lyrical, sometimes rhyming language, Bunting describes how a young girl and her grandfather rescue a caterpillar from a hungry jay and place it in a butterfly house (really a cardboard box), where they can feed and care for it. Eventually, it forms a chrysalis, emerges as a painted lady butterfly, and is released into the wild. After the girl grows up, she finds that butterflies seem attracted to her yard, perhaps because of her earlier kind deed. Shed's gouache-on-canvas paintings evoke feelings of warmth and nostalgia suited to the quiet story. Earth tones predominate, especially the browns and oranges found in this species. Appended with directions for raising a butterfly, this makes a great choice for primary science classes, families with young nature buffs, and Earth Day celebrations. --Kay Weisman
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3-After saving a caterpillar from a hungry bird, a young girl consults her grandfather and together they build a butterfly house. Considering the barren box, the child determines to bring outdoor beauty indoors, so the pair create a colorful "garden" of painted flowers to line the sides and a blue sky on the inner lid. Ultimately, the larva forms a chrysalis, undergoes the marvelous metamorphosis into a Painted Lady butterfly, and is set free by the tearful girl. The simply worded tale is narrated by the child grown old, who exults in a plethora of Painted Ladies in her butterfly garden, sure that they are the descendants of that long-ago butterfly who passed on memories of loving consideration. Shed's soft-edged gouaches in Painted Lady tones celebrate this joyous story in perfect rhythm and the whole will produce sighs of satisfaction from readers and listeners alike. It may also give rise to pleas for boxes and jars, papers and paints to raise butterflies. Teamed with such ideal nonfiction complements as Deborah Heiligman's From Caterpillar to Butterfly (HarperCollins, 1996) and Joanne Ryder's Where Butterflies Grow (Lodestar, 1989), plus a teacher-peek at E. Jaediker Norsgaard's How to Raise Butterflies (Dodd, Mead, 1988; o.p.), the book provides the nucleus for a fine whole-language science unit for the youngest set.-Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
