The Little Butterfly

by Sherry Shahan

From tiny caterpillar to beautiful butterfly, the life cycle of the monarch unfolds in this fascinating and educational Pictureback. The engaging text and realistic photographs follow a little monarch caterpillar as it progresses from the larva stage, through the chrysalis and then becomes a butterfly It then lays eggs that hatch into new caterpillars, starting the amazing process all over again.  

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Childrens

24 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1997

About the author

Sherry Shahan is a photographer and an author. She enjoys watching, photographing, and writing about the otters that play in the sea near her home in California. Sherry also wrote and photographed The Changing Caterpillar for Richard C. Owen Publishers.

Reviews

[Abbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book for newer readers follows the life cycle of a butterfly. It has colorful illustrations that align with the story perfectly. It has text that is easy to read and understand for young readers. My daughter loved that she could read it on her own!

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

A description of the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly complete with photos of the milkweed plant.

[Unidentified User · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is all about nature and this is kind of like the lady bug book but with a different facts and pictures.

[Lindsay Jorgensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book is so interesting and cute. I think it is something kids LOVE to discuss at a young age, because they're always wanting to catch butterflies outside. With that, I believe preschool age to about 1st or 2nd grade would love to a science lesson on how butterflies become butterflies, by starting off being a caterpillar. I think it's something that would be a great thing to tie into a science lesson and kids at a young age would be full of "oo's and ahh's" just by learning how a butterfly becomes a butterfly! I use to read books like this to my kindergartener's when I was a TA in High School, and I've just grown to love them. They'll be a great essential to have in my classroom, especially since I can tie them into other subjects!

I paired it with The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. It's personally one of my favorites, that I now read with my little nephews all the time. It's about a very hungry caterpillar who ends up eating and eating and eating. He starts off by eating one apple, and slowly makes his way up to eating multiple things daily, such as plums. He grows and grows and suddenly creates a cocoon and starts to turn into a butterfly. It shows children in a colorful, cheerful way how this process is. You can do so many activities with this book and create so many things so the children remember how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly!

[Lorie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The life cycle of a butterfly is explained for a beginning reader. This Step 2 reader from Random House’s Step into Reading Series is perfect for children who are moving up from a more repetitive practice reader to one where they will be reading for information. The shorter sentences and large photographs of actual monarch butterflies will be appealing to children beginning to read on their own. I would recommend this book for any school or public library.

This book was provided by the publisher for professional review by SWON Libraries.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part of the Step into Reading series - Level 2 - Reading with Help. This book is definitely easy; controlled vocabulary, large print, colorful pictures to illustrate the text. I liked this book - as a librarian who had to find "nonfiction books on monarch butterflies on a prek-1st grade reading level with really colorful pictures" for patrons, this book and books like it are manna from heaven. Not much to it really, but perfect for this age group and reading level.

[Margaret Chind · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm delighted to see Random House's Step into Reading is doing more DK Reader type science books in their series. While this Level 2 was a bit much for my daughter, she definitely was good with help. I can see that soon this will be the perfect level reader for her and it was very educational. Step by step through the cycle of a butterfly filled with real photographic images. Definitely worth while.

I read a digital arc.

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent example of the life cycle of a butterfly.

[Kaitlin Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

From an egg to a butterfly, Sherry Shahan tells the life cycle of a monarch butterfly in The Little Butterfly through detailed photographs and engaging text. The photographs are clear and zoomed in so much one can see the bumps on the egg and every hair on the butterfly. As a Step into Reading book, the sentences are short and simple. Most of the vocabulary is easy, with a small mix of precise words such as chrysalis, molting, nectar, and aphids. At times I found the vocabulary of this book to be controlled and felt the sentences did not flow well. Reading all of the simple sentences did not sound natural. While I really like all of the detail of the zoomed in photographs, I would have liked a few more zoomed out ones, maybe next to the zoomed in ones to give scale and perspective to how small the butterfly really is in its different stages. An alternative to that would be to have some photographs that show the butterfly’s real size by making the image two inches, for example, if it is two inches long in real life. Overall, I think the best quality of this book is its photographs. It is very informative and interesting so I think it would be engaging for young students and readers who are at its Step into Reading level.