Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

This book was chosen by a member of my book club.  When asked about it, she replied it's about butterflies.  Well, it is indeed about the migration of monarch butterflies but it also about much more.

Dellarobia Turnbow is a young mother of two..  She is married to Cub and lives on a sheep farm in Appalachia, a place known to have excess poverty and hopelessness. While on a walk one day, she discovers millions of butterflies resting on the trees.  She tells no one of her find.  Eventually her family, the inhabitants of the small town where she lives and the whole world know.

People observing Dellarobia see a miracle.  They believe her exposure to the monarchs has caused a change in her.  They would be correct, although she does not see the magnitude of the change immediately.  She begins to look at her life differently.  She sees the promise in her children.  She explores the promise in her own life.

This novel takes the reader on a miraculous journey from the monarchs to the changes in the perspective of a repressed young woman, eventually causing her to blossom in her own right.  In addition, the reader is exposed to a cautionary tale regarding the misuse of the gifts of nature with which God has entrusted us.

This is a book to be read for certain but also to be savored.  It is not simply a book about butterflies, it is also about the struggle,  fortitude, and  persistence that nature and humans share in their inert will to live.

Ladybookbug!