Maxilla: Book Review {Giveaway}

There is nothing my little boy loves more than getting new books.

So you can imagine how his eyes lit up when a new book arrived in the post for us to review -- Maxilla. I might not have mentioned it, but my son really loves bugs and insects. He's constantly asking us to stop on walks to peer at little creepy crawlies and is quite fascinated with them. This book, therefore, was right up his alley.

The first book by local author Lianne Ong, Maxilla is based on the true events that happened when Lianne's family was living in the Bay Area, California. A little boy named Reuben finds a caterpillar in his school garden one day and decides to keep her for a pet. He names her Maxilla and looks forward to seeing her grow into a butterfly. Unfortunately Reuben soon finds out that Maxilla is a special caterpillar that can only thrive in her natural habitat. Should Reuben keep Maxilla or release her back into the wild? That is the tough choice he has to make.

I wouldn't spoil the story for you but suffice to say that Reuben learns the important lesson about respecting nature and love. 

I'll also tell you a funny thing that happened to us just before we read the book: we ourselves found a little caterpillar at home. I'm guessing that it must have followed us back after our excursion the previous day. Whatever the case, the children were both tremendously excited. We nudged it gently into a container and they both spent a long time observing the caterpillar, which Noey promptly christened Boobee.

The children hastily went to pluck leaves from, erm, my neighbour's plants to give to Boobee but when he proved to be uninterested, Noey got worried. I told him that we'd do a bit more research to find out what Boobee might like to eat, but while I was away on an errand subsequently, he got my helper to bring him downstairs to release Boobee into the garden patch at the bottom of our block. "So that he can find his own food," Noey said.

So as you can imagine, Maxilla really struck a chord with him. "I give it 6 out of 5 stars!" he said. His favourite bit was the beautiful illustrations by Shing, an acclaimed artist who is based in Japan. I also liked the little section on the life cycle of a butterfly at the end of the book -- a little learning point that tied in neatly with the story. My only complaint is the uneven handwriting font for the text which I felt was not the nicest or easiest to read.

Now you also have a chance to win a copy of Maxilla for yourself as I have THREE COPIES (each worth $9.90) to give away! To enter, simply follow use the Rafflecopter widget below. The more options you complete, the higher your chances of winning. Two winners will be selected at random.

a Rafflecopter giveaway  

Wait, there's more!

I also have ONE BUTTERFLY KIT to give away! With this butterfly kit from Oh Farms, you can have the opportunity to keep a caterpillar in and watch it's transformation into a butterfly. The butterfly kit and one copy of Maxilla will be given to the person who leaves me the most interesting comment on this blog (as judged by me) to the question "Why do you want to win the butterfly kit and a copy of Maxilla?" The winner must be able to pick up the butterfly kit from a central location.

If you'd like to find more about Maxilla, Lianne Ong will be making a couple of public appearances at the following times and venues:

• 15 March (Sat) @ MPH Bookstores Parkway Parade, from 1 to 2pm
• 21 March (Fri) @ Woodlands Regional Library Programme Zone, from 12pm to 1 pm.

Do also visit Maxilla's Facebook Page for the latest updates.

If you'd like to find out more about butterflies here are some places which you might wish to consider visiting:

1. Butterfly Park & Insect Garden ($16/ adult, $10/child)

Located in Singapore's Sentosa Island, surrounded with lush tropical greenery, Butterfly Park & Insect Kingdom showcases the stunning beauties of a different variety of beautiful butterflies and interesting insects. A must - see outdoor experience for children, tourists and nature lovers alike, Butterfly Park & Insect Kingdom has wowed visitors from all over the world. With the scents, sights and sounds of an authentic tropical rainforest, it's a multi - sensory, interactive experience that's guaranteed to engage you from start to finish. 

2. Oh Farms Butterfly Lodge (Guided tour at $5/person)

The Butterfly Lodge is a butterfly-friendly flight cage which is created to allow visitors to observe and enjoy the butterflies in a landscaped garden environment. Visitors get to learn about the ecology and conservation of butterflies as well as appreciate the diversity and beauty of Singapore's butterfly fauna.

The habitats within the Butterfly Lodge are carefully designed to allow the butterflies to fly freely and go about their daily activities with as little interference as possible. The plants - featuring both butterfly host and nectaring plants, are selected to best encourage sustainability and survival of the butterflies and to illustrate the close relationship between butterflies and plants in nature.

One of the main objectives of the Butterfly Lodge is to provide an educational facility for students and enthusiasts to learn about butterflies, understand their behaviour and how to enhance the biodiversity and promote butterfly conservation efforts in Singapore for future generations to enjoy these Nature's Flying Jewels.

3. Hort Park Butterfly Garden (Free, but currently closed)

This used to be our favourite place to observe and get close to butterflies. Unfortunately, it's recently been closed to make way for a bigger enclosure. There is no information on when it will be re-opened.

4. Changi Airport Butterfly Garden (Free, Terminal 3, Departure Transit Lounge Level 2 & 3)

Nestled in Terminal 3 is the home to over one thousand butterflies. The butterfly garden, an all-time favourite, is the first of its kind to be featured in an airport. Educational corners and individual enclosures allow visitors to gain insight into the life cycle of a butterfly. You can even witness the birth of a gorgeous butterfly as it exits its pupae stage and takes its first flight at the Emergence Enclosure.

This is within the transit and departure lounge so something to note the next time you take a trip!

* We were provided a copy of Maxilla for the purpose of this review. Copies of Maxilla for giveaway are kindly sponsored by MPH. I'm sponsoring the butterfly kit on my own.

Nature at Our Doorstep

A few weeks ago, someone new moved in our on floor. But this new family is a little different from the rest.

We spotted the little guys repeated appearing in our lift lobby carrying bits of twig, dried grass and hair and realised: a pair of olive-backed sunbirds have decided to make their home in our neighbour's potted plant.

The kids were fascinated by this piece of nature being brought, quite literally, to our doorstep. Every day we watched as the nest slowly took shape.

In the beginning, it looked really like a haphazard laying of material - not like a nest at all! I certainly had my doubts. The branch that the birds had selected to build on was hardly substantial, and the materials kept dropping or being blown away. The mess it made around the plant also annoyed my neighbour, who at one time, asked her helper to remove the nest. Noey was so disappointed when he heard that when I suggested to him that we take it upon ourselves to keep the area clean, he readily agreed and help sweep a couple of times.

By and by, and against the odds, the nest was completed. And the little family moved in.

We took peeks in the nest occasionally when the birds were not around and were thrilled at one point to discover two tiny little eggs, waiting to be hatched. We watched as the birds patiently sat on top of the eggs as they incubated. Some days we could even see the birds peeking out from the nest, looking upon as watchfully. As long as we didn't go too close, they were happy to stay and go about their own business. We encouraged the kids to cut down on the random rowdiness in the corridor, and were pleased to note a drastic improvement in this area. When they didn't forget, at least.

A week or so later, my helper came excitedly to tell me that one of the eggs had hatched. We took a peek again when the adults were away and indeed, we spotted the tinest little bored, about half the size of my finger. The kids were so excited!

Throughout this time, we took opportunity to learn a little about the life cycle of birds, as well as a bit more about sunbirds online. I also checked out a couple of books from the library about birds and found an interesting one called Even an Ostrich needs a Nest: Where Birds Begin which discusses many different species of birds with drawings and descriptions of their different nests. It is truly a wonder to me how birds with can create such strong, load-bearing nests from such seemingly insubstantial materials. This is, to me, surely a sign of God's hand at work.

We are away for a bit and chances are that by the time we return, the little baby birds would have flown the coop. I'm sorry that we will miss the opportunity to see them emerge. I certainly hope another little family will come and make their home just outside our door. It has not been without incident -- a couple of times, we've found the sunbird in our house and have had to guide it out. It even once dipped into the frying pan on the stove, much to the kids' amusement. Thankfully the pan wasn't in use at that time! 

But I've been really grateful for the opportunity afforded to us to get this close to nature. It has certainly showed me that little creatures are much more resilient than we give them credit for. There's a lot of construction going on in my neighbourhood and my guess its that these birds have been ousted from their usual habitat as a result. While it makes me sad to think about, it also gives me hope that with some ingenuity and some accommodation, we can still live together, albeit in a different way. 

We Haz Tadpoles!

We have some new pets, and the kids are fascinated.

Say hello to our new, erm, tadpoles.

Mummy Selena sent out an appeal in a Facebook group I am part of, asking if there were any takers for some excess tadpoles that she had on her hands. I went to pick up a batch, thinking that it would be a great opportunity for Noey to observe the lifecycle of the frog. I honestly think that seeing tadpoles morph into frogs is most fascinating, once we get over the ick factor of it all. Hah. As it happens, the theme for the term at his pre-school is "Pets", so I thought having some creatures to take care of at home would complement that nicely.

Noey accompanied me on the pick-up and was most delighted with his container of tadpoles. "These are our pets, Mei-mei," he told his sister excitedly, while watching the little tadpoles do their own thing in the water. And harassing them, by tapping on the container and yelling at them. You know, for fun. He insisted I go out and buy a tank for them, and some fish food for him to feed them with that very day, which I did. The folks at the pet store all gave me weird looks when I told them what I was keeping!

I was a bit worried that the little tadpoles would not survive the night, especially since they seemed rather sluggish after we brought them home. I went to google some information on how to look after tadpoles, rather belatedly, and realised that oops, I probably should not have popped them into chlorinated tap water to begin with. The bigger 6-week old tadpole that we had brought home didn't make it, but these little ones appeared revived the next day, and have since been thriving.

Noey's been having a lot of fun trying to feed them and watch them chomp on their food. Nomi, well, I just try to keep her from putting her hand into the water!

So the most obvious question that everyone has, I'm sure, is: "What are you going to do with all those frogs when the tadpoles mature into adults??" (We have 11 little tads.) Honestly, I'm not very sure yet, but we're probably have to evict them somehow, somewhere. I do plan to try to get Noey's pre-school to adopt some as a learning experience for the kids, so hopefully I won't have too many to deal with. Selena has identified the tadpoles as Common Tree Frogs, also known as Four-Lined Tree Frogs, and I suppose the good thing is that they sound fairly common around these parts. My helper has been suggesting that maybe they can be eaten. I hope she's joking.

It's been a week so far, and these little guys have grown quite a bit bigger and fatter! No doubt the doing of the vitamin-enriched fish food Noey's been gleefully feeding them with. I hope we don't end up with huge mutant frogs. Hmm, that's a scary thought.

ANYWAY!

These little guys are ours for now. Let's see how they - and we, as pet owners - fare over the next few weeks.