Hello, friends! Our book today is the gorgeous Butterfly Park by Elly MacKay, a joyful story of a little girl and her love for butterflies bringing a town together.

A little girl is moving to a new town and is sad to leave her country home, especially the beautiful butterflies that live there. Moving to a house in the city, she feels lost at first – until she finds that she lives next to a Butterfly Park! When she visits the garden the next day, she finds that there are no butterflies in barren park. She goes searching, and find one in a neighbor boy’s yard. She asks for his help to catch it and bring it to the garden, but when they release it, it flies away. Enlisting more neighborhood children, they capture more butterflies, only to have them fly away as well. The kids begin to follow the last remaining butterfly, chasing it through town and attracting a parade of amused onlookers. At last, the butterfly leads them to a garden and the girl realizes her mistake: butterflies are attracted to flowers! She returns to the park with flowers, but still no butterflies arrive – until the park is suddenly filled with the townspeople, who happily help the girl build a flower garden that attracts her beloved bugs.

This was a wonderfully sweet story, filled with a guileless innocence that captures a feeling of childhood awe. But the absolute star of the show here are the gorgeous paper-cut illustrations, arranged and captured using tilt-shift photography, that give the art of the book a positively magical air. The reader can practically feel the movement, energy, and warmth of the characters within a three-dimensional space, and it’s really quite beautiful. The length was good as well, and JJ enjoyed it. This is a genuine feast for the eyes paired with a charming story about community, and it’s Baby Bookworm approved!