One Long Line: Marching Caterpillars and the Scientists Who Followed Them by Loree Griffin Burns, Jamie Green
Published by MIT Kids Press on May 14, 2024
ISBN: 1536228680
Pages: 56
Genres: Animals
Format: Chapter Book Nonfiction
Source: MSL Book Review
Goodreads

The first book in a new nonfiction series called Discovery Chronicles. This title follows the pine processionary caterpillar and focuses on two scientists who studied it. Jean-Henri Fabre researched and wrote about this fascinating creature in the late 1800s/early 1900s, and then, a half century later, Terrence Fitzgerald picked up on Fabre’s work and refined it. The two scientists wondered why processionary caterpillars followed a leader, if they will follow a particular leader, if they use silk to make a trail, among other questions. Fitzgerald used Fabre’s earlier work to make a hypothesis and then conducted experiments to prove it. The thesis of the book is that science is a “long line of learning” and that scientists are curious people who have a wonder and then use the scientific method to test a theory (or two) and record their work for others to read and build upon. Burns does an excellent job laying out this method and provides the reader with plenty of information about the caterpillars who are the star of this title; illustrator Jamie Green adds enough visual detail to help the reader understand what it looked like to study this captivating species. Hand this to budding scientists in grades 2-5.

Reviewed by Jill O’Connor, Falmouth Elementary School