Monarch and Mourning Cloak
A Butterfly Journal
An irresistible invitation to create a nature journal. Get outside! Be present. Pay attention.
Then “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” (William Wordsworth)
Author and scientist Melissa Stewart and artist Sarah S. Brannen model how this can be done and I’m convinced. In their gorgeous, sumptuous new book Monarch and Mourning Cloak: a Butterfly Journal, the pages are filled with surprising facts about butterflies, making the information easy to study and learn.
“A butterfly’s compound eyes have thousands of lenses.”
“Butterflies taste with their feet.”
“The mourning cloak lays her eggs near new leaves so the caterpillars will have food.”
In journal fashion, each spread has a date and location recorded. There are forest vistas and small vignettes. Common names and scientific names of flora and fauna are ascribed.
On her website, Melissa Stewart shares that the idea for this manuscript started in 2008. It was revised many times, but it wasn’t coming into focus.
“On a warm May day in 2023, I took the thick folder full of drafts out of my manuscript graveyard — the middle drawer of a large file cabinet in my office — and re-read the latest version, which I’d written in 2020. I still liked that draft, called Behold the Butterflies, and thought maybe what the book needed was an additional conceptual layer, and maybe it should tie into the art and design. So I put on my thinking cap.
“A few days later, I woke up with a burst of insight — maybe my friend Sarah S. Brannen was the solution. Sarah and I had created three books together, and each time, her art unified the text elements and amplified the sense of wonder. Like me, Sarah loves to observe and explore the natural world and her art inspires readers to launch their own journeys of discovery.”
They’ve both managed to amplify a sense of wonder.
The front endpapers belong to the monarch. We learn a great deal about their life cycle. The back endpapers showcase the mourning cloak. On these four “pages” we see their differences immediately.
If you have journaled or scrapbooked, you’ll find the presentation of information as exciting as I do, absorbing this and that, studying the detailed drawings of things so tiny I would never be able to watch them in real life. Back and forth, checking details, making sure I understand. I’ve learned a great deal about these very different butterflies.
Back matter includes samples of the author’s and illustrator’s own nature journals and encouragement to make your own.
I’m inspired. What will I find to photograph, draw, paste into my journal? Will I tape the poems in so I can keep working on them? Make edits? Be sure to leave room so I can look up the scientific names. Sketching. It doesn’t need to be perfect or presentable. It’s for me. Present. Paying attention.
Thanks to Melissa and Sarah and Beach Lane Books for this wondrous book. It will be a treasured gift for family and friends.
Monarch and Mourning Cloak: A Butterfly Journal
written by Melissa Stewart
illustrated by Sarah S. Brannen
Beach Lane Books, 2026
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This post has inspired me! I have a friend here who hikes the Smokey trails to photograph butterflies and wildflowers, often at the same time since where there's one, there's the other. I've been wanting to play with watercolors and am bored with my regular journals. Sometimes it's all too easy to run out of words! You just pushed me to get a watercolor paper notebook and start painting!
Anything that encourages us (adults and children) to get outside and observe nature is very worthwhile in my book!