Butterflies Belong Here

A Story of One Idea, Thirty Kids, and a World of Butterflies

"I know what to look for: large black-and-orange wings with a border of small white specks, flitting from flower to flower, sipping nectar. But though I looked hard, I couldn't find even one. I wondered if monarch butterflies belonged here. I wondered if I did, too."

In this moving story, a girl who has recently immigrated to the United States feels "a little like a caterpillar... quiet and almost invisible." But when she makes a poster about the monarch butterflies — whose migration path follows her own — her classmates are fascinated. Soon, she's organizing her class to create a milkweed garden for traveling butterflies, and along the way she starts to feel like she's found a home. This powerful story of community conservation is a reminder to kids that they can make real change — for themselves and for the world.