If You Want to Be a Butterfly

With this picture book, award-winning children’s author Muon Thi Van tells the story of the butterfly life cycle, in reverse, from butterfly to chrysalis to caterpillar to egg. This is an entertaining and inventive approach that captures the ongoing cycle of life in vivid and easily understood terms.

The book begins with a colourful butterfly awakening at sunrise and joyously flitting from flower to flower, drinking nectar and embracing the freedom of flight. But what came before the butterfly? A tenacious chrysalis which had to hang on tightly through wind and rain until the moment that a “tiny voice comes along like the first few notes of a brand-new song: HEY IT’S FINALLY TIME. HAS THE WORLD BEEN WAITING LONG?” So now we know where the butterfly comes from, but what are the origins of the chrysalis? Next we read about the greedy caterpillar whose sole job is to eat and eat: “Never eat less than what you weigh, and always weigh more than the day before.” But even before the caterpillar comes the tiny egg which sits still and dreams of nibbling leaves, smelling sweet flowers, and seeing the bright blue sky. The book reminds us that “even big dreams start out little at first.” And what came before the egg? A butterfly, of course! Thus the cycle begins again.

This fresh perspective on the age-old question of what came first, the chicken (or in this case, the butterfly) or the egg, is both entertaining and informative, a great way to introduce very young children to the idea of lifecycles and to describe the mystifying concept of metamorphosis. Andrea Armstrong’s exuberant illustrations are an ideal complement to the text and anthropomorphize the butterfly, the chrysalis, the caterpillar, and even the egg to make their experiences easily accessible to the very young. The book ends with a two-page spread which recapitulates the butterfly life cycle in less poetic but more factual terms and also includes information about the importance of all the various stages of the butterfly life cycle to our environment, concluding with a few easy suggestions for ways we can all help protect butterflies.

If You Want to Be a Butterfly, an entertaining and informative book, would be an excellent choice for a storytime and also for a preschool or early elementary school unit on butterflies or the environment.