Hurry and the Monarch

Antoine Ó Flatharta’s previous children’s book, The Prairie Train, won the Western Writers of America Spur Award. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.

Meilo So’s watercolor illustrations have graced a number of children’s books about nature, including Pale Male: Citizen Hawk of New York City and The Beauty of the Beast: Poems from the Animal Kingdom. He lives in the Shetland Islands, Scotland.

“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