Flutter

Gr 3—5—A moderately successful blending of a tender family story with a hair-raising adventure. Nine-year-old Maple feels unsettled when a monarch butterfly—out of season in chilly October Vermont—lights on the kitchen window; shortly afterwards, her mother goes into premature labor and baby Lily is born, small and weak. When feisty Maple overhears her father saying, "I am praying for a miracle," she believes that if she can only collect water from the fountain of the legendary old woman in the mountain, she'll have her miracle. Maple's first-person voice is authentic as she plots the dangerous journey and argues with her older sister who thinks it's too risky. Determined to save the baby, Maple won't be dissuaded, and eventually the sisters escape their grandmother's watchful eye and embark on an action-packed adventure that includes the hazards of a raging river, an encounter with a black bear, and poachers shooting deer—and almost the sisters. The use of the monarch butterfly, which appears several times during the journey as a sort of guardian spirit (and eventually accompanies them to the hospital), feels a little artificial, and some of the figurative language is awkward: "My throat twists like tree roots that have stood too long together." But the page-turner of a survival story, and the ultimate resolution that love, in this case a family's love for a baby, is the true miracle, will offer a satisfying read.—Caroline Ward, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT