CELEBRATE THE EARTH at the April SCBWI Reading List with BUTTERFLIES IN ROOM 6

BUTTERFLIES IN ROOM 6 is one of the books featured on the SCBWI reading list for the month of April. Hurray! The April theme is "Celebrate the Earth". What better way to celebrate the Earth than by watching caterpillars transform into beautiful butterflies!

You can find my book by looking in the nonfiction section of the reading list. 

ROSALYNN CARTER BUTTERFLY TRAIL

Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail at Lake Lure, NC

From roses to succulents, pollinator gardens to art installations, the Flowering Bridge at Luke Lure, in the mountains of western North Carolina, is a wonder of nature and testament to the volunteers who turned an abandoned bridge into a beautiful floral walkway.

The Lake Lure Flowering Bridge is a stop along the Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail, which begins in Plains, Georgia, at the home of President and Mrs. Jimmy Carter. The mission of the trail is to promote the full life cycle of butterflies common in this area with a special emphasis on the monarch.

Monarch butterfly.

When Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter learned of the struggling Monarch Butterfly population and threatened migration from North America to Mexico, she called on her neighbor and friend Annette Wise for advice on planting the right native plants in her garden.  When friends and neighbors in Plains learned what she was doing, they wanted to provide habitat in their gardens to help pollinators. Eventually, a "trail" started of butterfly gardens one house at a time, one church at a time, one library, one state, and so on.

The more butterfly gardens that exist, the greater the population of Monarch Butterflies, which have been so threatened for the past several decades primarily due to the removal of milkweed plants from farms and properties.  Monarch butterflies need milkweed on which to lay their eggs. Otherwise, the cycle of life for butterflies ends.  All pollinators benefit from native nectar and host plants. Find out more about the relationship between monarchs and milkweed at my earlier post on this blog.

On an informational board at the beginning of the bridge is a panel describing common butterflies of the area.

I visited the Flowering Bridge and learned about the Rosalynn Carter Butterfly Trail on a trip to North Carolina in August. I was pleased to see information about the Painted Lady Butterfly, the subject of my book BUTTERFLIES IN ROOM 6.  It was a rainy day and I didn’t see any butterflies, but I am sure that when the sun comes out, the garden will be full of them, feeding on nectar produced by the abundance of flowers.

You can read more about my visit to the Lake Lure Flowering Bridge at my travel blog The Intrepid Tourist.

All Text and Photos copyright Caroline Arnold

CELEBRATE EARTH DAY WITH BUTTERFLIES

Painted Lady Butterflies

Earth Day 2021 is Thursday, April 22nd. What better way to celebrate than with the miraculous transformation of tiny caterpillars into beautiful butterflies! 

As I do every spring, I ordered a cup of painted lady caterpillars online. (I get mine from Insect Lore, but there are other sites that offer caterpillars as well.) My caterpillars arrived three weeks ago. Every day they grew bigger and bigger and after about ten days became chrysalises and began their metamorphosis. About a week later, the butterflies began to emerge. Now in my butterfly habitat I have nine beautiful painted ladies! I will enjoy them for a few days and then release them in my garden.

Painted Lady Caterpillars

Painted Lady Chrysalises

Follow a kindergarten class as they raise painted lady butterflies in my book Butterflies in Room 6.

Butterfly Bookmark Project

Soon it will be butterfly season! To grow your own butterflies, you can order caterpillars from Insect Lore or other companies on the internet. 

To learn about raising butterflies, you can read my book BUTTERFLIES IN ROOM 6.

With thanks to Insect Lore, you can get the link HERE to download directions for making your own folded paper butterfly to use as a bookmark or for decoration.

CLCSC Virtual Fall Gala and Award Ceremony: Nonfiction Award for Butterflies in Room 6

Caroline with CLCSC Award for a Notable Work of Non-Fiction for Butterflies in Room 6

Yesterday, November 7, 2020, the Children's Literature Council of Southern California held their Fall Gala and celebrated this year's children's literature awardees at a virtual ceremony. I am proud to have received the award for a Notable Work of Juvenile Non-Fiction for my book Butterflies in Room 6. Other award winners this year are Laura Taylor Namey, Margaret Dilloway, Roseanne Greenfield Thong, Rebecca Constantino. Following an inspiring keynote address by author Deborah Heiligman, the award winners was introduced, and then we each gave a short acceptance speech. My award was presented with a lovely introduction by Annalisa Engh. Here are my remarks:

It is indeed an honor to be receiving this year's nonfiction award for my book Butterflies in Room 6. Thank you. 

I have been writing books for a long time, and pleased that a number of them have been honored by Children’s Literature Council in the past. For this book, Butterflies in Room 6, it is the first time as both author and photographer. A challenge in taking photographs of children and animals is that neither stay still for long! For many years I worked on books with photographer Richard Hewett, now passed away. I learned a lot about photography from him—a key being patient and willing to take LOTS of photos to get just the right one. I have also learned from my husband Art, my in-house tech guru, who is an excellent photographer and who helped me with the close-up pictures in this book

The idea for Butterflies in Room 6 began with an author visit several years ago at Haynes School in Los Angeles where I met Jennifer Best, a kindergarten teacher, who told me how she hatches eggs every year with her students as they learn about life cycles. The following spring, I embedded myself in her classroom, which enabled me to follow the process and get the photos I needed for my book Hatching Chicks in Room 6. At the time, I noticed that the children were also raising Painted Lady butterflies--watching the caterpillars grow in a jar, turn into chrysalises, and, after a week or so, emerge as beautiful butterflies. It seemed like the perfect sequel to Hatching Chicks. So, two years later, I was back in Room 6, learning about caterpillars and butterflies.

But this time, I wanted to do the project myself at home first so I could anticipate the pictures I would need and get some practice taking pictures of butterflies.  Most people who raise butterflies start with caterpillars. But I wanted my book to show the whole butterfly life-cycle, from egg to adult. So, I ordered Painted Lady butterfly eggs from a scientific supply house. The tiny blue eggs, no bigger than a grain of salt, came in a small vial. A note with the package said there were 35 eggs, with a few extra, in case some didn’t hatch. In fact, there were 100 eggs in the vial and every single one of them hatched! I soon had 100 very hungry caterpillars in containers all over my house! I had also ordered special caterpillar food to feed them, and within a few weeks, I had 100 beautiful butterflies.

Mrs. Best also ordered butterfly eggs, and I followed the students in Room 6 as they raised their butterflies, documenting the children’s excitement at each step of the process—looking through magnifying glasses, watching the caterpillars grow, and letting the butterflies rest on their hands for a moment before thy flapped their wings and flew away into the neighborhood. 

I couldn’t have written Butterflies in Room 6 without the help of Jennifer Best and her kindergarten students. I thank them for welcoming me into their classroom and for sharing the wonder of metamorphosis with me. I am also grateful to the children’s parents and the school principal, Barbara Meade, for their enthusiastic support. And I thank everyone at Charlesbridge Publishing, especially my wonderful editor Alyssa Pusey, who contributed to making this such a special book.

I want to express my gratitude to the Children’s Literature Council for choosing Butterflies in Room 6 for this very special honor today, especially Charmetria Marshall and everyone on the award committee.  And to President Jennifer Driscoll and all the people who worked so hard to make the arrangements for this special virtual celebration—Thank You!  

And here is my beautiful plaque!