Pros: Images, Facts, Life Cycle, Back Pages, Front Pages, In-between Pages
Cons: None, this is an example of how first science books should be done.
The Bottom Line: Butterflies capture children’s imagination and encourage observations. Books that introduce young readers to butterflies should inspire and be accurate like Waiting for Wings.
pestyside's Full Review: Lois Ehlert - Waiting for Wings
In 2001 Lois Ehlert published a book for early elementary school readers that knocked the nature center and natural history teachers off their feet. For many years we complained that Kindergarten and first grade science books lacked facts or if they had facts they were either not engaging or the facts were incorrect due to oversimplification. Lois Ehlert managed to successfully pull all of this together in Waiting for Wings and the kids loved it.
Not only did the kids love it, but science instructors, people who taught about insects and plants cheered. I heard a colleague tap dancing and jumping for joy when she found in the last pages of this book a simple, pictorial display of butterfly parts and flower identification. Yes simple, but accurate.
Colorful and beautiful, this large format picture book appeals to young readers. The bold colors and patterns attract not only the insects, but children. Waiting for Wings is about the full life cycle including metamorphosis, of a butterfly and its life as an adult.
It begins, "Out in the fields, eggs are hidden from view, clinging to leaves with butterfly glue." As the development continues for this tiny baby, the story is told in partial pages that overlap. Hidden among the leaves are eggs that, when you flip the smaller pages, change and become small caterpillars. We observe how the caterpillars feed on the leaves leaving holes.
Set in the front portion of this beautiful book is a collection of 16 small, overlapping pages and when each is opened to a double-page spread readers view the progression from egg to mature butterfly. If you’re observant you see that on each of these smaller pages Lois Ehlert has shown the same stage of the Tiger Swallowtail, Monarch, Buckeye and Painted Lady. One page shows their eggs, another shows their caterpillars, then the chrysalis and finally the adults. She also shows caterpillar “chomp” marks on the leaves.
You have to look close for the Buckeye chrysalis, a bit more than the other butterflies.
We follow each after "they pump their wings, get ready to fly, then hungry butterflies head for the sky." Waiting for Wings follows the flight of these four mature butterflies through the fields to where they dip and sip and on to where they lay their eggs, thus completing the cycle.
As excited as I was about the poetic telling of the butterfly metamorphosis, the last few pages made me delirious (well, perhaps a slight exaggeration). Two colorful pages provided all of the stages of each butterfly. One half of each page on this two-page layout showed the Buckeye, underwing view, overwing view, chrysalis, caterpillar and food. (This helps with recognizing some of them and their stages earlier in the book.) There's a lot to see and enjoy in this creative section.
There’s more. Butterfly information visually identifies parts of a butterfly (hind wing, forewing, abdomen, thorax, legs, proboscis, antennae, eye, and head). Text for second or third grade readers describes what is a butterfly, how does it begin its life and what does it eat.
Science literacy provides children with language skills to help articulate observations. It begins to provide a foundation for understanding the natural world that surrounds them. If science literacy can additionally foster literacy and an interest in reading, then that has to be a win-win situation. Waiting for Wings contributes to a child’s understanding for a process and I very much recommend this beautiful and appealing book.
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