Monarch and Milkweed

I somehow stumbled across this book in my library catalogue- it offers book suggestions the way that Amazon does. I judged the book by the lovely cover and reserved a copy. And I'm very glad that I did.

The astonishing story of Monarch butterflies and their plant host, Milkweed. I find the notion of migrating butterflies to be just extraordinary. It's amazing enough that 20gm swallows can migrate thousands of kilometres. And now here is the notion of a mere puff of colour migrating thousands of kilometres to find a specific stand of Oyanel fir trees in Mexico! How is that even possible? And in a rather fascinating twist explained in the note at the end of the book, one butterfly makes the entire southward migration, and yet it takes two to four generations of Monarch butterflies to make the return journey.

This is a beautifully illustrated book.

The palette and style of the illustrations are just gorgeous. Although my photos don't do justice to the full saturation of the colours in the book.

We learn about the lifecycle of the Monarch butterfly. While Milkweed is their host plant for laying the eggs, the adults feed off many different flowers. 

I was hoping that the illustrator would get to have a paragraph at the back as they sometimes do now to explain their technique, but sadly Leonid Gore didn't have that chance.

An Illustrated Year is hosted by An Abundance of Books.