"Butterflies and Moths" by Nic Bishop; "Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice," by Phillip Hoose; "Living Sunlight: How Plants Bring the Earth to Life," by Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm

By Mary Harris Russell

March 7, 2009

A trio of eye-openers, about actual lives and events in our history, and about the plant and animal worlds. These books will change the way you see the world.

Butterflies and Moths

By Nic Bishop

Scholastic, $17.99

Ages 8-10

If the book has Nic Bishop's name on the cover, then it's definitely not just another book on butterflies and moths. (You'll know this if you've seen his earlier titles, "Spiders" and "Frogs.") Forget familiarity: These books stun with close-up, crisply colored photographs that show us a world we think we know but have never seen before.

The text is arranged on a brightly colored background; the dark type stands out quite well and is not at all crowded. Each page of text faces a photograph, taken thrillingly close up, of brilliantly colored animals.

The butterflies and moths are shown in both their caterpillar and winged stages. Everyone will have a favorite. The cecropia moth caterpillar is lime green, with spiky sensory bumps of blue and orange with black spikes. A silkworm moth caterpillar from Costa Rica looks like some sort of sea anemone with gold and white spikes. In a two-page ending note, Bishop tells of some of his experiences chasing these photographic subjects, and his hard-working enthusiasm and patience spill off the page.

This is a book of less than 50 pages on which you will spend great amounts of time and visit repeatedly. If you have an upcoming chance to visit a butterfly exhibit of some kind, read this first.

Claudette Colvin Twice Toward Justice

By Phillip Hoose

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $19.95

Ages 10-15

It's important to know that Hoose wrote an earlier book, "We Were There, Too!: Young People in U.S. History." During his research for that book, someone told him that there was a teenager, a 15-year-old girl, who had been arrested in Montgomery for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white person, before the more well-known incident with Rosa Parks.

Since finishing the earlier book, Hoose pursued that story with patience and persistence, because now he can bring us the story of Claudette Colvin, and it becomes a story about one particular determined teenager and also about the ways in which some stories are picked up and carried on, and other figures fall into obscurity.

Montgomery was a dangerous place for black Americans, and Claudette and her family were brave in their determination to stick by their actions. Claudette wanted to go to college, she wanted a better school, and she knew what her rights were. (The portrait that emerges of her 10th- and 11th-grade teacher, Miss Nesbitt, who brought black history into her classroom, is a heartening one.)

Her decision on that day on the bus was not planned, but her courage through all that followed is remarkable. Claudette didn't fulfill all her dreams, for a variety of reasons, but this tribute to her tenacity and her importance is well deserved. Hoose makes the moments in Montgomery come alive, whether it's about Claudette's neighborhood, her attorneys, her pastor or all the different individuals in the civil rights movement whose paths she crossed. A dense text that becomes an engrossing read.

Living Sunlight How Plants Bring the Earth to Life

By Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm

The Blue Sky Press, $16.99

Ages 5-8

For the youngest schoolchildren, sometimes it's hard to explain the connection between all the parts of our planet's ecosystems. Bang and Chisholm start at the heart of things, literally: "Lay your hand over your heart, and feel. ... Feel how warm you are. That is my light, alive inside of you." Who is speaking? "I am your sun, your golden star."

That visual image is so easy for a child to imagine, and the ripples of golden light from the sun are found on all the pages as Bang and Chisholm show (not simply "tell") how plants make oxygen and animals eat plants and on and on.

Somewhere, long ago, I remember some dim diagrams in a high school biology book, and "photosynthesis" was something on a midterm. Take a look at this one, no matter what your age, to be thrilled by the process. (There are several ending pages with more on photosynthesis for readers who want that level of detail.) Where the book ends, for the youngest of its readers, however, is stirring enough: "You hold my light and make it live. You are living sunlight." Enjoy the spring.