Olivia and her butterfly friends spend all of their time together, until one day everything changes, and Olivia and her mother move to an apartment in the city.

Olivia is heartbroken because she doesn’t want to leave her butterfly friends behind but her mother assures her that she will make new friends in the city.

When Olivia and her mum arrive in the city, it’s so grey and gloomy that everyone is sheltering inside. Olivia waits for new friends to come and play but no one appears.

So Olivia stands on her empty concrete apartment balcony and calls out to her butterfly friends — because they always come when she needs them. But this time, even her butterfly friends don’t appear.

Then Olivia remembers that butterflies need colorful nectar plants, a puddle pool and rocks to rest their wings on, but Olivia doesn’t have a garden anymore so she decides to build a butterfly balcony garden using whatever she can find. Olivia waits and waits and waits but her butterflies stay away.

Just as Olivia is about to lose hope, a gust of wind blows flowers from her balcony garden across the grey sky and onto her neighbors’ balconies. People of all ages and cultural ethnicities appear on their balconies to pick up the flowers, and Olivia suddenly knows exactly what she needs to do to attract (human and butterfly) friends.

Ashling Kwok is a children’s author from Sydney. She is obsessed with children’s literature and loves immersing herself in a magical world where anything is possible. When she’s not working on her manuscripts, Ashling can be found scouring local bookstores in search of inspiration. She hopes to continue to write stories that take children on a journey and hopefully touch their hearts.

Arielle Li is a Taiwanese–Australian illustrator based in Adelaide. She has been passionate about creating art from a young age and has been pursuing illustration as a career since 2019. When she’s not working, she enjoys long walks at the beach, chasing her cats around the house and practising Taekwondo.