I chose to make my apprentice book on Zyzzyva’s short story, Good with Boys. I thought this story was gripping for a lot of reasons. This is a story of coming-of-age, of a young teen girl reaching the point in puberty where she is interested in boys, and in life, as she becomes more self aware. I find this character to be funny, relatable, and determined. She has a strong personality so I felt very drawn to her. This is also a story of change and/or growth. At the end, when the butterflies are released and all of the young teens have forgotten in this brief moment about all of their problems and hurt, the protagonist discovers something within herself, that which the reader doesn’t fully know. For these reasons I made my apprentice book about the life cycle of a butterfly, while creating a parallel between the life cycle of a human, of specifically this character.

I chose to make this book yellow because I felt that yellow has a youthful vibe to it that corresponds well with the characters and their respective ages. The lifecycle of a butterfly idea came to me at the ending of the story, when there is a release of butterflies, and the main character expects to hear some long speech about their lives leading to this point. However, there was no speech, so I felt I could capture this. Butterflies are thematic for many reasons, but the important thing about them is change. They go through many many changes, that metaphorically, can relate to the growth of humans. In the beginning there is an egg, a fetus. And then there is a hungry caterpillar, a young child, with a sense of adventure, of desire. Soon there is a chrysalis, and soon this child is trapped as a teenager. Stuck in restricted freedoms, stuck in prepubescent bodies that don’t feel like us at all. Then one day we begin to break free of our limitations, our insecurities, until we become a true butterfly. I sensed all of these things through the character, and decided to create a book that captured all of these stages.