An incredible journey

"I don't know much, but I know what I know. I gotta go! I gotta go! I gotta go to Mexico!" The creepy-crawly bug doesn't know why she does what she does. She only knows she has to do it. But making the journey seems impossible for the slow-moving critter, who has no idea what or where Mexico is. Then an everyday miracle occurs, bringing a transformation that will help her fulfill her destiny. Each autumn, millions of Monarch butterflies migrate from the central and eastern United States and Canada to colonies in the mountains of Mexico, where they mate before flying north in the spring to lay their eggs. In simple, jaunty text and pictures, Sam Swope and Sue Riddle celebrate the amazing story of one of these intrepid bugs.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 17 reviews)

Great Book!

This is a very cute book! I am able to use it with my third graders. This book enables the students to come up with the terminology that a third grader should use (migration). Very cool!
September 07, 2008

Orange and Brown Fills the Sky......

My first grade loved this book. The repetitive phrase every few pages about going to Mexico is one they enjoyed reciting with me. The beautifully painted pictures allow children and adults to enjoy the obstacle-filled mandatory journey (to survive) for the determined little butterfly. The complete life cycle of the butterfly is wonderfully presented and easy to recall. (The book I had also included a note that the butterfly refuge in Mexico where all Monarchs must winter for survival, is slowly being torn down.) An opportunity for letter writing and involvement to help save the delicate and beautifully colored orange and brown little wonders could certainly complete this incredible journey into the life of the Monarch.
October 01, 2006

Cute as a bug

This is a simple and charming story of a caterpiller with an urge to travel to Mexico. Her neighboring animals tease her (it's too far), but she recedes into her cocoon, emerging as a beautiful monarch butterfly, and proves them all wrong by flying south.

The story has a winsome sing-song refrain ("I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go to Mexico!") that children will love, and simple engaging line drawings. I'm impressed that the basic science in the story is accurately presented - the stages of the butterfly's life, its migration, its mating (gingerly and sweetly handled as a "dance" between butterflies) and its eventual return home.

My daughter loved this so much we donated a copy to her pre-school, where they watch monarch butterflies hatch in a terrarium every year. A big hit with the 3-to-5-crowd!
January 27, 2004

Great!

This is one of the best children's books I have read in a long time...my kid's love hearing it and I don't tire of reading it again and again....

Wonderful because it tells a true 'nature story' in such a whimsical way.
October 19, 2001

Factual, entertaining... what more could you want?

Gotta' Go, Gotta' Go is a wonderful book about a monarch caterpillar and his lifelong "journey." I am a nature center director and we use this book to teach about the magnificent monarch migration. The book is entertaining, fun to read out loud, and best of all, factual.

Eric Carle's book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, is a cute book, but he did us all a disservice when he wrote that butterflies come out of cocoons. Butterflies hatch out of chrysalis, moths hatch out of cocoons. This book by Sam Swope has the correct information.

You'll love it, your kids will love it, and your kid's science teachers will love it when your child already knows one of the major differences between butterflies and moths.
July 08, 2001

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Where Butterflies Grow (Picture Puffins)
by Joanne Ryder
by Lynne Cherry

From Caterpillar to Butterfly (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science, Stage 1)
by Deborah Heiligman
by Bari Weissman

Hurry and the Monarch
by Antoine O Flatharta
by Meilo So

Clara Caterpillar
by Pamela Duncan Edwards
by Henry Cole

I Wish I Were a Butterfly
by James Howe
by Ed Young