Barner revisits the weighty subjects of his popular Dinosaur Bones
, looking at how butterflies coexisted with dinosaurs: “By spreading pollen from bloom to bloom, butterflies helped flowering plants flourish. Flowering plants made more air for dinosaurs to breathe and huge amounts of food for them to eat.” Each double spread's format is the same: one sentence in colorful, blocky typeface sits amid the artist's bold cut-paper designs, the entire layout backed with a single, vivid hue. Additional facts in smaller type extend the narrative. The inviting, flashy interplay of the many colors, patterns and textures (e.g., painted butterfly wings are thinly edged in flower motifs) establishes an upbeat tone—except for the nearly monochromatic spread on dinosaur extinction. “But butterflies lived!” the next page reads, as two enormous specimens perch on flowers. An easy-to-read time line contextualizes the chronology of the first dinosaurs, flowers and butterflies (and even cats, dogs and humans) as a smattering of facts about seeds, insects or dinosaurs rounds out this aesthetic extension of a popular topic. Ages 4–8. (May)
