Since we went into lockdown, we've been trying to find ways to keep our son Dante occupied, educated and entertained. (His sister Gaia is only 1, so I just make few funny noises and she's happy!) Mrs Shan hit upon the idea of a butterfly breeding kit, and and I have to say, it's one of the best things we've ever done with him.

We were sent a breeding cage, and a jar of live caterpillars, and over the coming weeks we watched them feed and grow inside the jar, then attach themselves to the roof and harden into chrysalids. Then we moved them over into the cage, waited a couple of weeks, and out came the butterflies. When it came time to release them, they were slow to fly the coop, so Dante reached in and one crawled onto his fingers. He lifted it up, said his goodbyes, then off it flew into the wide blue yonder. Absolutely magical.

I think you can get these kits from all sorts of places, but Mrs Shan got ours from the following site, which I can personally and highly recommend for anyone living in the UK or Ireland: https://www.insectlore.co.uk/butterflies/live-butterfly-kits.html

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Heads up! I'm going to be doing an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session over on Reddit on Wednesday, June 3rd, starting at 3pm Eastern Time USA (8pm UK time) and running for 2 hours. If you have a burning question that you're dying to ask me -- this is your chance!! https://www.reddit.com/r/books/wiki/amafullschedule