Houdini: The Amazing Caterpillar by Janet Pedersen

I am the crazy butterfly lady, no doubt about it. If a book so much as even mentions monarch butterflies I must have it for my classroom collection. Imagine my excitement when I received a review copy of Houdini the Amazing Caterpillar from Clarion Books this week!

Houdini is a monarch caterpillar who lives in a classroom. He is always the center of attention due to his amazing tricks, like eating milkweed leaves really fast and shedding his skin. The kids love him! But one day, they start paying attention to other animals in the classroom, like their pet turtle. Houdini is not thrilled with this new development (especially since he thinks the turtle is B-O-R-I-N-G). He tries to perform new, more amazing tricks but nothing holds their attention.

Until the big day.

The day that Houdini decides to pull out all the stops and shed his skin on last fabulous time. This time? He becomes a chrysalis! The students are in awe after viewing this last transformation and Houdini is one more the center of attention. He goes two weeks without moving, eating, or doing any other tricks! Finally, after 10-12 days he opens his eyes and emerges from the chrysalis. This amazing feat stuns the children, who are thrilled with their friend, Houdini! Now that he is a beautiful monarch butterfly, they hold a butterfly release and let him go.

This is a very cute book and one that rings very true for me. We just did our last monarch release a week ago and even my 6th graders are excited about the metamorphosis of the monarch butterfly. The book is very accurate and includes all the stages of the life cycle. The illustrations, watercolors done my Janet Pedersen, are gorgeous. The only small issue I have is that Houdini is more white/yellow striped than black/white/yellow striped. However, this is my only quibble with the book.

Janet Pedersen was inspired to write Houdini the Amazing Caterpillar after attending her son’s kindergarten butterfly release. How cool is that?! I hope that kindergarten teacher is as excited as I am! Pedersen also includes a page of monarch facts in the back, which makes me happy.
This is a great book for any classroom that raises monarchs. It is also great for teachers and parents who don’t have monarchs of their own but want to share these magical creatures with their children. I highly recommend it!