Bianca and the Butterfly
by Sergio Ruzzier; illus. by the author
Preschool, Primary    Harper/HarperCollins    48 pp.
1/25    9780063295889    $19.99

While mother polar bear sleeps, readers meet Bianca, a cub who relishes her routines and surroundings—seeing the pale Arctic blues and greens, hearing the sounds of the ice, feeling the cold. “Bianca loves the things she knows.” Soft watercolor illustrations in Ruzzier’s trademark off-kilter style and outlined with pen and ink showcase an animated Bianca licking icicles and sledding down hills until something out of the ordinary catches her attention: a bright red, yellow, and orange butterfly on a nearby ice floe. She jumps over to investigate and, while attempting to make friends, fails to notice she has drifted too far away from home to jump back. A sea adventure ensues, and the text works together with spot art, single-page illustrations, and double-page spreads to express the range of emotions Bianca feels (sadness, worry, discomfort, curiosity). The butterfly stays with her, communicating only with gesture and proximity, until they approach a new, tropical land. While the illustrations make use of color and shape to capture the contrasting settings, the text further appeals to smell, sound, touch, and taste to fully evoke a sense of place. Bianca enjoys exploring but soon feels homesick. Opportunity, once again, comes at just the right time for her to return to the home she knows and loves—but the tantalizing ending shows that new color has entered her world, along with a curiosity for the unknown.

From the ">May/June 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.