Flight Behavior / by Barbara Kingsolver / 436 p.

Dellarobia is desperate to escape her dull existence.  Feeling trapped by an early shot-gun wedding and two small children, she is ready to flee.  But suddenly her life is transformed by a strange new phenomenon on the mountain in Tennessee where her family lives--the unnatural arrival of millions of monarch butterflies.  Beautiful and quickly seen by the locals as something wonderful brought to the region by a benevolent God, it is viewed as disastrous by the scientist who comes to investigate. This books examines our threatened physical environment, a community overwhelmed by poverty and a woman who realized that there can be more to her life than what she has seen so far. 


I listened to this title as an audio book. I was concerned at first when I realized that the author would be narrating her own work.  But I needn't have been.  Kingsolver does a wonderful job at bringing Dellarobia to life.

Ivy + Bean What's the Big Idea / Annie Barrows 131 p.

Ivy and Bean team up to find a cure for global warming. The second graders investigate cooling the earth with ice cubes-- a no go. Others suggest planting trees, a giant vacuum cleaner to suck up the heat and send of into space, and lots more. Ivy and Bean's idea for the science fair involves creating awareness in adults. A cool way to introduce this topic.

2012 Notable Children's Recordings