ACCESS DIGITIZED EDITION
Guide/Reviews Database
PICTURE BOOKS
Shatokhin, Oleksandr

Yellow Butterfly: A Story from Ukraine

72 pp. | Red Comet | January, 2023 | Trade ISBN 978-1-63655-064-0 $21.99
(2) K-3 A Ukrainian author-illustrator shares a powerful wordless story about a child's ability to process emotion and find courage amid the devastation of war. Blacks and grays dominate the somber early pages. A child surrounded by barbed wire is terrified as the wire seems to become an enormous spider. She runs away, trips on a rock, and falls. While looking up, she sees a butterfly. This spot of yellow, the only bright color after sixteen pages of black, gray, and white, allows for the possibility of change. Shatokhin builds on that feeling by having the girl follow the butterfly past silhouetted figures in scenes of despair, representing all she's lost. Facing that loss unleashes her anger, and she rages, beating her fists against what turns out to be a bomb. The one butterfly becomes two, then four, the kaleidoscope gradually increasing until the dark no longer overwhelms each page. With yellow surrounding her, the child begins to see glimpses of blue sky. The barbed wire is replaced by butterflies, and in a final spread, people of all ages face a cloud of yellow below a bright blue sky, recalling the Ukrainian flag. While this is Shatokhin's personal response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it is also a way to help children wrestle with the ruin and fear of war and bear witness to the resilience of those living through it.
Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2023

RELATED 

PICTURE BOOKS

Born Ready
by Patterson, Jodie
PICTURE BOOKS

The House of Grass and Sky
by Ray, Mary Lyn
PICTURE BOOKS

The Dog's Gardener
by Storms, Patricia
PICTURE BOOKS

And I Paint It
by Kephart, Beth
PICTURE BOOKS

Poem in My Pocket
by Tougas, Chris
More

Get connected. Join our global community of more than 200,000 librarians and educators.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing.

ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER?