The first grade class at Robin Hill is surprised by their teacher bringing in a bunch of caterpillars for them to raise into butterflies.

This is a short and simple story about the life cycle of a butterfly. For the most part, the information is factual despite this being a fictional story. However, there is one part where the teacher says the butterflies will get bigger within a few hours of emerging from the chrysalis. But the butterflies depicted appear to monarch butterflies, which eclose at full adult size. They only need a few hours to pump their wings dry of fluid, not to grow larger.

That being said, this book is designed for very young readers so it does make sense that it is not necessarily super technical. The language is accessible for beginning readers working on their own or for a short readaloud with young preschoolers.

The illustrations sadly do not show much diversity amongst the students. ( )

“Butterfly Garden” by Margaret McNamara is a cute story about a class that adopts some caterpillars. I value this book for two reasons. First, it includes a lot of dialogue that helps keep the story lively. A lot of the things said by the students or by the teacher are said excitedly. “Look!” “Come closer!” I also like how the drawings take up the entire space of the pages, and utilize the crossover effect like we saw in “Where the Wild Things Are.” This technique helps open up the story to the reader, and better envelope the reader into the world of the story. The overall theme is that of scientific change: first, guessing what might happen to the caterpillars, and then observing the transformation into butterflies. ( )

I would incorporate this book if I was doing the project with my class where a caterpillar is kept in a jar and fed so that the class can watch it change into a butterfly and see all of the steps. I would potentially read this book at the beginning of that unit.