Moth in a Fancy Cardigan (Moth in a Fancy Cardigan #1)

Gary’s a nine-year-old gray moth, and the gray cardigan he wears symbolizes his “practically invisible” existence, in which he often wonders what it would be like to be someone else. His popular butterfly classmate Florence, meanwhile, wears a brilliant, colorful cardigan that conceals an apparently un-butterfly-like interest in the color gray, which she sees as “full of possibilities.” In a narrative that unfolds with passion and intensity, Australian writer Lance brings the two beings together, toggling back and forth in sections that center each character, portrayed in charcoal-y gray and citron yellow art by Australian artist Booth. After Florence leaves her dazzling cardigan on a park bench, Gary secrets it away and tries it on, finding himself transformed. When Florence confesses the loss of her cardigan—and the misplaced birthday present in its pocket, meant for her beloved grandmother—she learns something that changes her view of herself, and of Gary. School drama and insect details are wittily proffered (cardigans are put on “over one, two, three then four arms”) in a lightly wrought be-yourself story about how “Clothes do not maketh the Man, the Woman, the Moth or the Butterfly.” Ages 7–12. (June)