My Butterfly Bouquet

A little girl leaves a hospital after an illness and her dad takes her to an indoor glasshouse to visit some butterflies. As the little girl watches the butterflies, her dad explains to her how they lay their eggs, why some of them have brightly coloured wings and spots and how caterpillars make a chrysalis.

As the little girl recovers from her illness, she grows stronger by helping her parents plant flowers containing lots of nectar for the butterflies, any by the time summer comes around, dad says that the little girl is blooming like a flower and growing like a weed! Even better, the garden is full of butterflies – a testament to everyone’s hard work, and a symbol of the little girl’s own recovery and transformation.

At the back of the book, there’s a wonderfully detailed guide to the life cycle of the butterfly, information about why butterflies need wild flowers and also about what you can do to help the butterflies in your area.

As ever, Nicola Davies’ books are full of lovely details about nature, and in this book, she has deftly woven a story about a child recovering from illness into a story about how we can also help revive butterflies, a species that are under threat.