A Children's Guide to Arctic Butterflies - by Mia Pelletier (Hardcover)

About the Book

About 50 species of butterflies live in the North American Arctic. Here, young readers learn about 12 of these species that call the Arctic home and how they survive from one summer to the next. Full color.

Book Synopsis

There are 20,000 species of butterflies in the world, but only several dozen are found on the tundra of the North American Arctic. Many Arctic animals have warm, woolly coats, downy feathers, or thick layers of blubber, and Arctic butterflies appear fragile with their fluttering, delicate wings. Yet the hardy butterflies that live at the top of the world have many clever ways to keep themselves warm in cool summers and endure icy-cold winters. In A Children's Guide to Arctic Butterflies, young readers learn about twelve of the butterflies that call the Arctic home and how they survive on the tundra from one season to the next.

With a simple layout and easy-to-follow headings for each butterfly, this beautiful book is filled with fun, useful facts, including introductory material about the life cycle and anatomy of butterflies and how they begin life as caterpillars.

Step inside and journey North--you may even spot a familiar fluttering friend. While some of the butterflies found in A Children's Guide to Arctic Butterflies are among the most northern of butterfly species, many can also be found south of the Arctic and in high, cold places around the world!

Review Quotes

Clear and concise text keeps the material engaging; Christopher's lifelike, intricate illustrations, including the lovely endpapers, allow for easy identification; and helpful back matter includes tips for identifying butterflies in the wild and some further reading material. Keep a net handy for this one--readers may want to try their hand at spotting butterflies in the yard!

Easy to read and attractively designed, the main content of A Children's Guide to Arctic Butterflies will serve as a useful and interesting reference book. Its topic is one children may rarely think about, but it is one which is essential to their overall knowledge of our northern environments. Highly Recommended

This beautiful book opens with information about how to tell the difference between moths and butterflies, a page showing the different parts of a butterfly, a page showing the life cycle of a butterfly, and pages explaining how butterflies stay warm in the Arctic and what these creatures do in the Arctic winter....The writing is lively and the illustrations are gorgeous. This will be a great addition to any library or classroom and a must-have for kids who are interested in insects.

Mia Pelletier's lovely A Children's Guide to Arctic Butterflies, illustrated by Danny Christopher, explores the very different cold-weather world that these fluttering, fragile-looking insects inhabit and, with Christopher's exquisite illustrations, offers us a different way of looking at the Arctic landscape.

About the Author

Mia Pelletier grew up exploring the lakes and forests of the Canadian Shield. Drawn to shorelines and wild places, Mia studied ecology and lived in California and the Magdalen Islands before moving to Baffin Island, Nunavut, in 2010. In Nunavut, she works with Arctic seabirds and with Inuit on the co-management of protected areas. Mia enjoys exploring the Arctic tundra and learning about the fascinating plants, animals, and people that call this region home.

Danny Christopher has travelled throughout the Canadian Arctic as an instructor for Nunavut Arctic College. He is the illustrator of The Legend of the Fog, A Children's Guide to Arctic Birds, and Animals Illustrated: Polar Bear, and author of Putuguq and Kublu. His work on The Legend of the Fog was nominated for the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustration Award. He lives in Toronto with his wife, four children, and two dogs.