Belle, a painted butterfly, has been quietly hovering over a beautiful white poppy in a seventeenth-century Dutch painting that has been her home for three hundred years. Suddenly and unexpectedly, there is a whoosh of air, and she finds herself flying out of her picture into a whole new world.

So begins the adventures of Belle, the red admiral butterfly in Jan Davidsz de Heems Vase of Flowers. Accidentally dislodged when her painting was being taken by museum staff to be examined by the Conservation Department, Belle and her sidekick, Brimstone, a fellow butterfly who was ejected from the painting at the same time, must find their way back home.

When their painting rolls into an elevator without them, their journey through the art museum begins. Because they are made of paint, they discover that they can blend into any of the other paintings in the museum, no matter what the subject or period. The characters travel through the museum galleries, morphing into and out of paintings by multiple artists and in many styles; at the same time, they must avoid becoming lunch for a painted bird in hot pursuit, who was inadvertently released from another painting by an awkward bump from Brimstone!

Belle and Brimstone tell their story as it happens, with all the scary encounters and comic incidents that have them hiding out in unlikely places in the paintings they encounter. They dash and dart as the predatory bird flies after them, chasing them from room to room. Successful and safe in the end, Brimstone is up for more adventures. Belle is not so sure! Maybe it will be safer if they stay put in their painting from now on. Can you find them?

While the story is an adventure story written for young readers, it will also enchant younger listeners. Featuring the collection of the National Gallery of Art, this tale is a fanciful romp through three hundred years of art history, inviting young people to delve into the world of art through the works of de Heem, Vermeer, Chardin, Goya, Rembrandt, Vigee-LeBrun, Cassatt, Renoir, Monet, Tissot, Picasso, Derain, Puryear, Matisse, O’Keeffe, Rothko, Pollock, Lichtenstein, and many others.

As an added bonus at the end of the book, Belle has taken the trouble to create Belle's Amazing, Astonishingly Magical Journal, illustrating it with her comments on each painting — and ideas on where to hide when being chased! Let Belle and Brimstone be your guides and watch out for that Bird!

From the inside cover