Ride the Butterflies

Maybe it's because his mother was a teacher. Or maybe it's because he has spent most of his life in classrooms - as a wide-eyed first grader, a naïve college student, a seminarian, and now as a visiting writer in residencies across the country. There's something about school that infuses the work of Donald Davis and he has collected his all-time favorite school stories in the book. Whether we're traveling around the world with Miss Daisy, the fourth grade teacher who was integrating arithmetic, geography and English before the term “whole language” ever surfaced; or watching in awe as a classmate conjugates malaprops in Miss Vergilius Darwin's Latin class; or driving a school bus and learning about segregation - we experience flashes of recognition in moments that transcend Donald Davis's childhood stories. These coming of age tales will teach readers the importance of caring, citizenship and respect.