Flight Behavior
by Barbara Kingsolver
(Harper, 2012)
One of my favorite facets of the Fill-in-the-Blank Book Club is that participants can read whatever sort of book they like: fiction, poetry, nonfiction, graphic novels. And they can choose books that are written for adults or for children. It’s all up to you! The only guideline, really, is that the book in question have some relation to our monthly theme. Our inaugural meeting will happen in person in Massachusetts and online everywhere on Tuesday October 24, and our topic, as many of you know, is insects.
I’ve already recommended some children’s nonfiction and children’s poetry, so today I’m going to shake things up and share an adult novel that fits the theme beautifully. Barbara Kingsolver’s FLIGHT BEHAVIOR is the story of an Appalachian community touched by a mysterious invasion of butterflies. Some people see the presence of the butterflies as a miracle, others fear it’s a sign of impending doom. This is a gorgeous novel, full of the complicated characters living in a complicated world, and their experiences will stay with readers long after the book is finished.
The invasion of monarch butterflies depicted in the novel is fictional, but the butterfly behavior is completely real. Every winter, millions of monarch butterflies in eastern North America undertake an incredible migration. They end up, somehow, together in a handful of remote mountaintop locations in central Mexico. I was lucky enough to visit several of these sites when working on the book Citizen Scientists, and I can tell you they are astonishing to witness. Here’s a video peak, which doesn’t do the live sight justice, but will give you just a taste.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sawZNkXgJc