Books About Butterflies for Kids

Spring has sprung and that means it is time for books about spring And, with spring comes all those cute little new baby animals which means lots of books about animals should be added to the reading rotation too. Up today, those beautiful little creatures we love to see flying through the flowers-butterflies. Yes, we’ve got some of the best books about butterflies for kids. As always, we only share the books that make great read-alouds. So grab some nectar, and let’s start gathering some delightful books.

Books About Butterflies for Kids

Get ready to explore the wonderful world of butterflies with these butterfly books for kids from toddlers to the bigger kiddos.

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Butterfly Books for Toddlers

The Butterfly Garden by Laura Weston if a lift-the-flap book with limited text but full of vocabulary. The pages are black and white beautifully detailed scenes. Then, you lift the flaps to reveal the color.

National Geographic Kids Look and Learn: Caterpillar to Butterfly is a great non-fiction selection for little ones with gorgeous photographs to see the process from caterpillar to butterfly.

Enjoy Butterfly Butterfly by Horacek. This one is really more about learning colors and discovering the great outdoors, but there is a beautiful butterfly pop-out surprise. Speaking of colors, check out our Big Book List of Colors.

Little ones love books that are interactive and that is what you get inLittle Butterfly: Finger Puppet Book.

Don’t limit yourself with this above list. Many of the books in the next category work for toddlers too.

Butterfly Books for Preschoolers, Kindergarteners and Bigger Kiddos

If you need a sure-fire hit for a whole group read-aloud, grab The Very Impatient Caterpillar by Ross Burach. Waiting can be hard and that’s the case for one very impatient caterpillar who really wants to know what is coming next. After finding things to occupy his time and learning to have patience, he is greatly rewarded. The kids will love the personality of this impatient caterpillar.

Señorita Mariposa by Ben Gundersheimer is a sing-along bilingual book about the yearly migration of the Monarch butterfly.

Caterpillar and Bean by Martin Jenkins is a science-related book that looks at two lifecycles. That of a caterpillar and that of a bean and how they are interrelated.

Stunning illustrations with labels and lots of details is what you’ll find in A Butterfly is Patient by Dianna Aston.

Really up the learning and compare butterflies to moths. A great pick is Moth: An Evolution Story by Isabel Thomas. Children will discover how the color of moths has changed over time.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a classic book to use for a butterfly unit. A hungry little caterpillar eats his way through the days of the week growing each day. Then, it rests and transforms into a beautiful butterfly.

Lush pictures and lots of habitat exploration is what you will find in Ten Little Caterpillars by Bill Martin Jr.

We have lots of literacy ideas to do after reading. Check out our The Very Hungry Caterpillar Book Activities.

Lift-the-Flap Bugs & Butterflies by Usborne is so fun for children because they lift all the flaps to discover even more details about butterflies and other bugs.

Are You a Butterfly?- Backyard Books Series by Judy Allen is super neat because it invites the kids into the book to pretend they are a butterfly. Children get to envision themselves living the life of a butterfly.

Winged Wonders: Solving the Monarch Migration Mystery by Meeg Pincus uncovers the mystery that was solved in 1976 about where the monarch butterflies go each year.

In Butterfly for a King : Saving Hawaii’s Kamehameha Butterflies by Cindy Trumbore and Susan L. Roth, we travel to Hawaii to explore the Kamehameha butterfly. Learn how the butterfly came to be, who is named after, and how citizen scientists are helping to protect it.

The Secret Life of Butterflies by Roger Vila is a big and beautiful look at the world of butterflies. Learn about butterfly superpowers, the journeys some take, and butterflies in the age of dinosaurs. So much to unpack in this one for older readers.

I like that this book focuses on one detail of butterflies. In Milkweed for Monarchs by Christine Van Zandt it is the need of milkweed for monarch survival. Information is included on how we as individuals can help.