This is the gentle, honest story of Lisa, a child dying of cancer, who finds comfort and support in her friendship with a caterpillar preparing for transformation into a monarch butterfly.

Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2024, internationally bestselling author and literary icon Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies is "beautiful, heartbreaking and alive ... a lyrical work of historical fiction based on the story of the Mirabal sisters, revolutionary heroes who had opposed and fought against Trujillo." (Concepción de León, New York Times) Alvarez’s new novel, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, is coming April 2, 2024. Pre-order now! It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leónidas Trujillo’s dictatorship. It doesn’t have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas—the Butterflies. In this extraordinary novel, the voices of all four sisters--Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and the survivor, Dedé--speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from secret crushes to gunrunning, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo’s rule. Through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez’s imagination, the martyred Butterflies live again in this novel of courage and love, and the human costs of political oppression. "Alvarez helped blaze the trail for Latina authors to break into the literary mainstream, with novels like In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents winning praise from critics and gracing best-seller lists across the Americas."—Francisco Cantú, The New York Times Book Review "This Julia Alvarez classic is a must-read for anyone of Latinx descent." —Popsugar.com "A gorgeous and sensitive novel . . . A compelling story of courage, patriotism and familial devotion." —People "Shimmering . . . Valuable and necessary." —Los Angeles Times "A magnificent treasure for all cultures and all time.” —St. Petersburg Times "Alvarez does a remarkable job illustrating the ruinous effect the 30-year dictatorship had on the Dominican Republic and the very real human cost it entailed."—Cosmopolitan.com

An important picture book that gives children free rein to express their questions, fears, thoughts, and ideas about death.

Who Knows Where Butterflies Die is a timeless story of the human spirit's desire for freedom "We're made to believe that learning the alphabet or chemistry and mathematics and this and that is more important than learning how to act like humans. Yet, believe it or not, it's humanity that would save the world. Humanity is what prevents revolution and war. Humanity is what prevents tyranny, famine, mass killing, and torturing one another. It's sad to know that external forces are leading people to lose the respect and understanding they used to have towards each other. "With the never-ending invention of newer technologies, I feel that the world has fallen into a race to turn people to robots. Everyone seems to be in a competition to show off the latest gadgets in their hands, but they hide the quality of their hearts in their chests. With all the new developments that are pushing us into a deeper isolation, I don't know where we're headed. I just know that that's what's leading us to a gradual, global self-destruction in many ways." -Excerpt from Who Knows Where Butterflies Die Praise for Who Knows Where Butterflies Die "An important and powerful story that brings awareness to the pain and devastation innocent families experience when mired in a homeland full of oppression, war, and revolution." -Brock Tully, inspirational speaker and author of 9 books, including The Great Gift "Who Knows Where Butterflies Die ... It's a must read. It inspires us to take responsibility for the world we are creating by our action and inaction." -Ted Kuntz, educational speaker and author of 4 books, including Peace Begins with Me

The fascinating and complex evolutionary relationship of the monarch butterfly and the milkweed plant Monarch butterflies are one of nature's most recognizable creatures, known for their bright colors and epic annual migration from the United States and Canada to Mexico. Yet there is much more to the monarch than its distinctive presence and mythic journeying. In Monarchs and Milkweed, Anurag Agrawal presents a vivid investigation into how the monarch butterfly has evolved closely alongside the milkweed—a toxic plant named for the sticky white substance emitted when its leaves are damaged—and how this inextricable and intimate relationship has been like an arms race over the millennia, a battle of exploitation and defense between two fascinating species. The monarch life cycle begins each spring when it deposits eggs on milkweed leaves. But this dependency of monarchs on milkweeds as food is not reciprocated, and milkweeds do all they can to poison or thwart the young monarchs. Agrawal delves into major scientific discoveries, including his own pioneering research, and traces how plant poisons have not only shaped monarch-milkweed interactions but have also been culturally important for centuries. Agrawal presents current ideas regarding the recent decline in monarch populations, including habitat destruction, increased winter storms, and lack of milkweed—the last one a theory that the author rejects. He evaluates the current sustainability of monarchs and reveals a novel explanation for their plummeting numbers. Lavishly illustrated with more than eighty color photos and images, Monarchs and Milkweed takes readers on an unforgettable exploration of one of nature's most important and sophisticated evolutionary relationships.

Reprint. Originally published: New York: Doubleday, c1984.

A vividly illustrated celebration of butterflies that discusses their presence in art and culture throughout the ages and examines their symbolism and the related beliefs of a wide variety of peoples.

"Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality." - Emily Dickinson This is a book about the indestructability of love. Journalist and author Karina Machado spoke to over 60 Australians with stories of post-death contact. She shares their life-shattering experience of loss, and shows how their spiritual contact with a deceased lover, friend or family member brought peace, hope and the solace of knowing that their connection lives on. There is the story of a teenage boy who appears in bodily form on the eve of his funeral to bring comfort to his sister. A young husband returns to his widow in time to prevent another tragedy. A grandmother arrives to lovingly care for the infant children of her grief-stricken daughter. A man soothes his heartbroken brother with an otherworldly embrace. Written with grace and compassion, Love Never Dies is as much about the power of loving relationships as it is the phenomenon of the survival of consciousness beyond death.

Fifteen-year-old Ruby Milliken leaves her best friend, her boyfriend, her aunt, and her mother's grave in Boston and reluctantly flies to Los Angeles to live with her father, a famous movie star who divorced her mother before Ruby was born.