María Mariposa

PreS-Gr 3–In an ideal world, home is safety, beauty, and love. The world is not always ideal, home cannot always hold those truths, and home cannot always stay in one place. In this picture book, María is far away from her home in Mexico. It starts with her on a “brand-new morning, in a brand-new city, on the very first day of a brand-new school.” But a monarch butterfly from Mexico visits, bringing a winding trail of memories in bloom, lusciously described in the text and similarly echoed in decadent illustrations. This kernel of home helps María be brave. She spreads that light to her family and neighbors, imbuing the flowering hope of the mariposa. Even when her school is scary, moments swirled in dark tornadoes of fear, María channels her inner strength to stretch her wings and radiate joy. Valenti’s writing sprinkles in Spanish at perfect moments, cementing María’s sense of self. Come for the simple but important story of strength in cultural roots, stay for the gentle magic in the pictures, bursting with color and framing the ordinary world as something brighter, better.