When the Butterflies Came

March 1, 2013
The day following her grandmother's funeral, butterflies begin visiting grieving 12-year-old Tara, who's swept into a bizarre mystery involving her grandmother, butterflies and a small Pacific island. Raised in a deteriorating Louisiana plantation house, Tara pretends her life is fine, but her impoverished Southern-belle mother hides from reality, her absent father has remarried, and her older sister is self-absorbed. When her beloved Grammy Claire dies unexpectedly, Tara feels like a "hole is shredding up" her heart. Then the first mysterious butterfly appears, followed by a special-delivery letter Grammy Claire wrote before she died. The letter leads Tara to Grammy's house, where she finds 10 keys and more letters with cryptic clues urging her to protect the butterflies and trust no one. Progressing from clue to clue, Tara learns Grammy had made an amazing scientific discovery about the butterflies on Chuuk island, putting her life and the existence of the butterflies in peril. Suspense builds as Tara relies on her wits and follows her heart to Chuuk, where she risks all to save Grammy's butterflies. Plucky Tara tells her implausible tale in a colloquial first person, present tense that slips occasionally, allowing readers to feel her grief, wonder, fear and surprise. Inconsistent voice and implausibility aside, middle-grade readers should respond to this perplexing puzzle and its resourceful heroine. (Mystery. 8-12)

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April 1, 2013

Gr 4-7-Her beloved Granny's death leaves 12-year-old Tara with a trail of cryptic letters, clues, and keys having something to do with the unusual butterflies appearing in her family's run-down Louisiana mansion. So begins a choppy, too-big-too-be-true adventure ultimately encompassing the child's mother's nervous breakdown, her annoyingly clueless and self-centered dyed-blue-haired older sister, a British butler who arrives to do their bidding, a secret laboratory, and a blow-out finale on an exotic South Sea island...with a token cute boy. Despite the compelling central drama and many excellent descriptive passages, inconsistencies and unbelievable coincidences vie with stop-and-start action to frustrate readers, whose journey toward solving the mystery is kept in check by the meandering first-person narration of Tara, the "Pantene Princess." Readers would do better to stick with Jennifer Allison's "Gilda Joyce" books (Penguin).-Rhona Campbell, Georgetown Day School, Washington, DC

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2013
Grades 5-8 Twelve-year-old Tara's chaotic life has always be steadied by one personher beloved Grammy Claire. Now Grammy Claire is gone, and the Louisiana home that has sheltered Tara's family for generations may be repossessed. In the midst of her grief, Tara's heart is lightened when an extraordinary butterfly flies through her bedroom window and lands on Tara's finger. Then a mysterious letter arrives for Tarafrom Grammy Claire! This is the first clue in a secret mission that Grammy Claire seems to be directing from beyond the grave. Tara receives a set of variously shaped keys, each one unlocking the next clue, always written in Grammy Claire's handwriting. In many ways this is an old-fashioned mystery that depends on Tara's wits, not, refreshingly, from magical solutions and supernatural powers. While sophisticated readers may find the sequence of keys and clues somewhat unbelievable, young mystery lovers will enjoy the chance to test their own detection skills. Recommend this to readers who have enjoyed books by Andrew Clements or Blue Balliett.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)