cover image Arabella Miller's Tiny Caterpillar

Arabella Miller's Tiny Caterpillar

Clare Jarrett, . . Candlewick, $16.99 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-7636-3660-9

Jarrett (The Best Picnic Ever ) adapts a finger rhyme (albeit one better known in her native Britain) and pairs it with floating illustrations to explore a caterpillar's transformation into a butterfly. Her heroine, Arabella Miller, brings home a small caterpillar, feeds it and builds it a home, and watches it change. The author/artist's lighthearted treatment involves bouncy, well-constructed verse that imparts plenty of information: “CRACK!/ His skin split all along his back./ And underneath it, big and baggy,/ was a new one, soft and saggy.” Jarrett's full, round shapes and curved lines loosely recall Matisse; tissue paper cutouts and a bold springtime palette cinch the artistic reference. Unmentioned in the text, a pet dog helps Arabella gather leaves and waits by her side as she tends to her caterpillar. A final spread examines the life cycle of a butterfly; clear prose accompanies playful illustrations based on an insect in the swallowtail family and the Queen Anne's lace plant it prefers. Striking a balance between artistic feeling and scientific information, this handsome, oversize volume is particularly well suited for the preschool set. Ages 3-7. (Feb.)