Racing with Butterflies

“Racing with Butterflies is engaging, fun to read, and accurate in its depiction of monarch natural history—it will draw in young readers while helping them understand why we should all care for monarchs.”—Dr. Scott Black, executive director, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Will Tai’s horse ride in the rodeo? Tai and his horse, Dune, are preparing for a rodeo competition. When Dune mysteriously becomes ill, a neighbor blames the milkweed plants in Tai’s pasture and tells Tai he must remove them. When Tai learns that monarch butterflies—including one he named Dana—depend on the plants, he becomes conflicted. How can he save both Dune and the monarchs? Things get even more complicated when Tai’s mother visits. Are his parents getting back together? As Tai struggles to save Dune, the butterflies, and his family, he learns relationships aren’t as simple as he’d thought.