The Girl and the Butterfly Garden

Chloe takes one look at the dry, dusty yard behind her house and decides it could use some color. Dressed in her yellow leaf-print shirt, denim overall shorts and red rain boots, she puts on her gardening gloves, finds a packet of bright orange flower seeds and starts digging small holes in the soil. When her neighbor Mrs. Hale leans over the fence, she offers Chloe something better than ordinary seeds: native flowers that butterflies love. Chloe plants them with care and waters them every morning, whispering encouragement to the little seeds.

Weeks later, green shoots push through the ground. Leo, a small neighbor in a red bucket hat, arrives with his plastic watering can and asks to help. The two children watch caterpillars munch the leaves, bees visit the blooms, and one caterpillar form a shiny green chrysalis that Leo compares to a tiny sleeping bag. Neighbors soon stop to admire the garden, and Mrs. Hale decides to plant a butterfly garden of her own. This gentle story by Jane MEADOW shows how steady, small efforts can transform an empty space, and it can be read on Kids Tale Book.