Jamie Carothers

As someone who has done public school substitute teaching I think this is a great addition for teachers to consider reading to their classrooms, if allowed to outside of the designated curriculum. A simple way of explaining how a butterfly comes to be with stunning artwork illustrations. As a classroom reading addition it may bring the love of learning about nature and the sciences to students, as well as the visual arts. The artwork in the book can be enjoyed and appreciated for any age, STUNNING! I give it an A+! I'd like to see more, "quality books" in the classroom. In my opinion, not all of them are, not in concept or in artwork illustrations. I started searching for that on my own as a teacher after noticing it's an improvement area needed in education, an opinion based assessment of mine. I think sometimes low quality material can be discouraging on an interest and motivation level for young readers, teacher passion level for the literary arts may also be a factor. It would be very difficult if we had to pick a favorite out of the entire butterfly classification, wouldn't it be? I love many of them although I am particularly fond of the, "owl" and the "luna". I'm in favor of the evolutionary anti-predator defense hypothesis in regards to "eyes" in some of the butterfly markings, which of course we see in the "owl".

O'Henry is my favorite author. Some of his stories are more clever than others. The first 3 short stories in, "Roads of Destiny" are exceptional in my opinion. I discovered this author on 9/9/2023 when I got a second hand book ("Options") containing a series of his short stories. Based on what I'm seeing in reading more of his authored works all "books" with his writing are compilations of short stories he wrote and not full length novels. I'm moving around in reading in his "books", the stories in the beginning of each seem to be the best. Some themes he sort of repeats in a way between stories, I like the "love story" about an artist and musician in, "A Service of Love" in the book, "The Four Million", more than, "The Gift of the Magi". They both showcase the sort of things people might do regarding someone they love, depending on the couple. He's so "real" in how he records life in many ways through fiction, I like the personalities he creates, hard to pick a favorite one, "The Skylight Room" that's another interesting one, also in the book, "The Four Million". "She wasn't meant for the skylight room". In some of his stories he creates very vivid environments and he does it using very few descriptions. I some stories he wrote when the words don't seem to flow that well you sort of need to think of how broken English sounds as a language or street slang, unless you're a lit. major or something like that. The stories probably aren't, "global" for that reason, the same reason why stories using "old English" can be a little struggled for me as a reader, I can't exactly always "place the voice" because I haven't been around that sort of speech. He's sort of a "working class" author of a past era, you'll need to keep that in mind to get the most out of reading his stories. There's actually quite a bit of "working class" carryover speech still today that was used back then, not all, but some. I'm enjoying, "Postscripts", newspaper and mag. story compilations of his, I don't think all the "takeaways" necessarily translate that well in this era, there seems to be a need for certain "street knowledge" 3/4th's of the way through 1800's which isn't known all that well now for a "full read" of that book.