Open these books and enter a world that spans travelogue, memoir, adventure, conservation, and migration to tell the story of the land and its people.

Part travelogue, part adventure, and 100 percent love letter to nature, Sara Dykman’s Bicycling with Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration (Timber Press. Apr. 2021. ISBN 9781643260457) narrates her daring solo bike trip tracing the monarch butterfly’s migration through North America. Dykman, a wildlife advocate, skillfully renders vivid depictions of blue skies, orange butterfly wings, and multicolored milkweed blooms that she encounters on her audacious travels through Mexico, Canada, and the United States. Vitally, she links the dwindling monarch population to climate change and draws a parallel between the butterflies’ plight and the rights of migrants and refugees. Full of heartbreak and hope, this book teaches the science behind the incredible life cycle of the monarch butterfly and the reasons for the species’ decline; Dykman urges readers to do something about it. READ NEXT: Readers who want to learn more about butterflies might try The Language of Butterflies: How Thieves, Hoarders, Scientists, and Other Obsessives Unlocked the Secrets of the World’s Favorite Insect, by Wendy Williams.

Another book celebrating the beauty of the North American landscape is Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions. 2015. ISBN 9781571313560). Botanist and plant ecologist Kimmerer, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, seamlessly blends plant biology, Indigenous cosmology, history, and memoir to explore our relationships to the land and each other. In essays that elegantly build on one another, she examines questions of coexistence and ecology: what humans owe one another; what it means to be a citizen of the earth; how to restore our connection to the land. Kimmerer’s work reveals that science and beauty are inextricably intertwined; she manages to do this all with the graceful touch of a poet. READ NEXT: Lauret Savoy’s Trace: Memory, History, Race and the American Landscape also excellently combines personal family history, geology, and social science in prose that tells a complex, layered, and inclusive narrative about what it means to be American.

For a deeper look at migration, read The Book of Rosy: A Mother’s Story of Separation at the Border, by Rosayra Pablo Cruz and Julie Schwietert Collazo (HarperOne. 2020. ISBN 9780062941923). This powerful dual memoir tells the story of the crisis on the U.S.–Mexico border from two distinct points of view. Rosy is a mother from Guatemala who was separated from her young children at the Arizona border and placed in ICE detention. Julie is a white American mother who was horrified at the “zero tolerance” practices of U.S. immigration policy, and responded by founding a grass-roots organization dedicated to reuniting separated families. Each woman has a compelling voice and a crucial part of the story to tell, their individual accounts merging to create a whole narrative. Unflinching and captivating, this book documents the ongoing border crisis that has riveted the nation and the world, and provides a fuller understanding of the events. READ NEXT: Let’s Talk About Your Wall: Mexican Writers Respond to the Immigration Crisis, edited by Carmen Boullosa and Alberto Quintero, offers more perspectives on U.S. immigration policy, in a broad collection of essays by Mexican novelists, journalists, and documentarians who invite readers to explore the issues in new, multifaceted, and profound ways.

American journalist Kimball Taylor’s The Coyote’s Bicycle: The Untold Story of 7,000 Bicycles and the Rise of a Borderland Empire (Tin House Books. 2017. ISBN 9781941040621) supplies cycling and suspense near the United States’ southern border. Starting with the mystery of thousands of bikes found abandoned between Tijuana and San Diego, this meticulously researched book takes readers on a journey on both sides of the border. Taylor ultimately uncovers the fascinating truth, including a legendary figure who transformed the business of border-crossing by using bikes to outfox high-tech security. With extraordinary real-life characters and multiple narrative threads, this title is perfect for book clubs, as well as for fans of true crime and nonfiction that reads like fiction. READ NEXT: Savor more cycling in On Bicycles: 50 Ways the New Bike Culture Can Change Your Life, edited by Amy Walker. An inspiring, fun-to-read, and well-curated collection of 50 essays from 50 authors about what being a cyclist means to them.

Science journalist Sonia Shah’s The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move (Bloomsbury. 2020. ISBN 9781635571974) successfully weaves together diverse disciplines, including history and biology, to contend that migration of humans and animals is an ongoing, natural, and positive phenomenon. Shah takes on issues like climate change and anti-immigration views, with thorough research to challenge deep-seated beliefs and biases. A great choice for readers who enjoy popular science and books about climate change or immigration. READ NEXT: Elizabeth Kolbert’s Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future takes readers further into the dynamics of human interaction with the natural world and investigates climate change’s wide-ranging implications for us all.

Migdalia Jimenez is a reference librarian at Chicago Public Library and an LJ reviewer.