Butterfly Garden

In these distracted times, kids are frequently more adept than their parents at video games, VCRs, and all manner of batteries-not-included-some-assembly-required. But there’s still plenty of room for real magic and wonder. There’s no better place to experience that simple childish joy than the Minnesota Zoo’s butterfly garden, now open through Labor Day. In a big party tent covered with cheese cloth, the Zoo has put together a collection of more than 40 species of living, fluttering North American butterflies, and some of the more spectacular species of moths too. (Check out the gigantic Luna moth, which is so ornate it looks like a refugee straight out of baroque Italy.) We’re especially drawn to the numerous cocooning stations, where small trees are literally festooned with the magical creatures undertaking their metamorphoses. Maybe this year we’ll learn the difference between a cocoon and a chrysalis—and this time maybe it’ll stick. Minnesota Zoo, (952) 431-9500, mnzoo.org