Tuesday, March 19, 2013

National Reading Month: Kristen's Picks

March is National Reading Month and the staff of MOSI Outside are pretty dedicated readers. We thought we would share some of our favorite butterfly, plant and science books with you from fiction, non-fiction and even children's literature. Here are my picks for lovers of insects, plants and science:

Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis by Kim Todd

The book covers the life and studies of naturalist and scientific illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) who carefully recorded the full life histories of moths and butterflies. Tracing their lives from eggs to adult, Merian worked to show the metamorphosis of these remarkable creatures. Traveling to Surinam in 1699 at the age of 52, Merian embarked on a taxing yest remarkable journey for a woman of her time. Her direct observation of insects of Europe and the Americas was both fascinating and groundbreaking and her work was published in the vernacular, appealing to all those who could read and not just restricted to the scholarly who published their scientific findings in Latin.

I received this book as a birthday present last year and would very much recommend it for those tho love butterflies, history and fascinating women. If you enjoy this book, you can see more of Merian's artwork in these books:

Ship Fever: Stories by Andrea Barrett

A slim volume of short stories that speak in the language of love and of science. In "The English Pupil" Carl Linnaeus is an old man, watching the world of order and taxonomy that he built slowing drift away with his memory.  The story "Behavior of the Hawkweeds" peers into the life of monk Gregor Mendel frustrated by the genetic mysteries of a plant that behaves nothing like the pea plants with which he had first  explored the laws of heredity. 

Sometimes beautiful but sometimes sad, these stories thrilled me simply because they spoke my language. Science.

People of the Book : A Novel by Geraldine Brooks 

In addition to being a butterfly and plant geek, I am also an artist. I work specifically on recreation of pages from illuminated manuscripts of the middle ages. So, yes, most of my interests are fairly small niches but I find them comfortable. This book brought my love of butterflies and my love of illuminated manuscripts together, even if only for a little while. 

This work of fiction traces the a highly imaginative story of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminated Jewish manuscript that has been lost and found through history as it is protected from destruction. Small clues inside the book trace its hidden history: an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair. The bit of insect wing, specifically a butterfly wing, helps to trace one of the locations where the book was hidden during WWII. The connection of butterflies and plants to this book isn't huge, but I found it neat to see a sliver of butterfly wing become a clue in this work of fiction. 

A Few Other Picks




Books for Young People

Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian

Recommended for grade levels 1-4, this book tells the story of Maria Sibylla Merian from the perspective of the naturalist as a 13 year old girl. The young naturalist studies butterflies in their natural habitats and follows their lives through all life stages.

Perfect for the precocious, I would suggest this book for young insect enthusiasts or for girls with a mind toward exploration and science.

My, Oh My- A Butterfly!: All About Butterflies This volume from the Cat in the Hat's Learning Library pairs two young people with the Cat in the Hat as they explore the butterflies of their own back yard. What I appreciated most about this book was the colorful and correct illustrations and that it used the lexicon of butterflies, not balking at using the correct terms for parts of the insect's life. Unlike some other children's books, this book actually uses the term chrysalis!

I used this as a birthday present for my niece when she was 4 years old and I think she is still pretty fond of it. 

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