Patricia Polacco’s picture book “The Butterfly” strikes a rare balance: grim and gritty and yet hopeful. The story is based on real-life events of Polacco’s great aunt Marcelle Solliliage and her daughter, Monique Boisseau Gaw, who hid a Jewish family in Nazi-occupied France.
Told in a plain and direct manner following Monique as a child in World War II, the book addresses real historical events of great horror without going for shock value. Monique gradually discovers that a Jewish girl, Sevrine, and her parents are hiding under a secret trap door in the living room.
Monique witnesses the unjust arrest of a neighborhood Jewish shopkeeper and the terror of living under Nazi occupation. She comes to understand the severe threat to Sevrine and her family. Her response, delightfully childlike, is to sneak out of bed at night to share snacks and play with Sevrine. These late-night rendezvouses ultimately jeopardize the security of the family, forcing them to move at great personal risk. There is no fairy magic in this story to make things right.
Given the subject matter, this is certainly not suitable for all children. However, perhaps more children could handle it than we give them credit for. Some parents try to shield their young children from any hint of war, grave injustice, deprivation, or want in the world. That may be a mistake. Our children will encounter evil, and we would do well to prepare them for it.
Understanding not only that evil exists but also how to respond to people who have experienced great injustice is part of forming the moral imagination that can greatly benefit children. I’m reminded of chaperoning a trip to Washington, D.C., when a young teen utterly refused to enter the Holocaust Museum because he “didn’t want to feel sad.” Life will have to be quite shallow and narrow if we are to avoid any and all unpleasant emotion. Of course, we don’t send young children off into scary museums with no guidance, but neither we should give them a pass and allow ignorance.
It’s not as though all children will delight in such a challenging book as “The Butterfly,” but Polacco’s story is an homage to her courageous family members, stoking an ember of hope that carried people through a dark time.
When read aloud recently, one child went so far as to object to the book outright. When asked why, the child said it was about “such a cruel time.” When asked why someone would write about a cruel time, the child responded thoughtfully that people reading the book, when they encounter another time of great cruelty, will know that there were brave people and they will know what such brave people might do.
And what does a brave person do in the face of seemingly immoveable, insurmountable evil? Behave as an adult. Shelter the more vulnerable. Take the next right action, however small. Marcelle, Monique’s mother, is a study in decency and courage amid a bewilderingly sad time. She is the adult in the room for scared little girls and adults rendered incapable of action due to their tenuous circumstances under a reign of evil.
When the girls are seen by a neighbor playing at night, thus endangering everyone involved and compromising the current hiding place, Marcelle responds not with the understandable frustration and irritation of someone who has already risked so much. Instead, she responds to Sevrine’s question if she is angry:
“Oh, no, ma petite. No, of course I am not angry. You are a little girl. You didn’t ask for this war, or to be kept in my cellar. You needed to play—children need other children.”
As difficult as the subject matter of such a book is, the message to children is that they can remain children and that there are courageous adults who will do the right thing, even when the odds are so stacked against them. The book is a challenge to the adult reader to behave in a way befitting civility and virtue. Unsure what we were getting into with a library find, I was impressed with the beautiful story of personal courage in the face of hardship and injustice.
Personally, I sometimes find Polacco’s illustrations overwrought in some of her other works, but these were not too stylized and exuded a charming Old World feel which was an interesting counterbalance to a difficult story.
To introduce challenging concepts or to complement a history lesson, “The Butterfly” is a well-crafted book about a family’s beloved memory to share with children young and old.
