Four Wings and a Prayer

Caught in the Mystery of the Monarch Butterfly

By: Sue Halpern

Sue Halpern is brilliant when it comes to choosing a title for a book and equally talented in the writing of a unique memoir and travel adventure. For anyone who has ever been moved by the sight of the well know orange and black butterfly, Daaus plexippus, usually referred to as the Monarch, Four Wings and a Prayer is a must for your library.

Part memoir, part travel adventure, Sue Halpern takes you on a journey into the wild world of mystery surrounding the Monarch. It is her pursuit for better understanding of the power that this small creature holds on both scientists and amateurs (like myself) alike, that makes Four Wings and a Prayer such a fascinating read.

Just days after promising her mother that she would not drive through Mexico at night, Halpern finds herself spending a week in a car, in Mexico, driving at night, with a total stranger. But this was no ordinary stranger. Bill Calvert is really more of a "legend" according to Halpern. It is Bill Calvert who twenty seven years earlier, had made one of the greatest discoveries in modern science; the winter roosting sites of the Monarch butterfly. He is one of the many intriguing scientists and passionate individuals that cross back and forth through the pages in Halpern's journalistic account of the life of the Monarch.


Whether Halpern is humping through Mexico's Transverse Neovolcanic Mountains trying to catch a glimpse of the monarchs winter roosting site or driving fifteen miles per hour along Hawaiian roadways in hopes of spotting a white monarch, a rare genetic variant, she reveals eloquently her own passion for her literary muse in this captivating book centerd around the mystery of the Monarch butterfly.

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