Firefly Song: Lynn Frierson Faust and the Great Smoky Mountain Discovery

By Colleen Paeff, illustrated by Ji-Hyuk Kim. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2025. 40 pages. $19.99/hardcover; $10.99/eBook.

This book is based upon the true story of Lynn Frierson Faust, a self-taught naturalist who, through keen observation and persistence, helped contribute significant knowledge to the scientific study of fireflies. She’s become such an expert over the years that people call her the “Lightning Bug Lady.”

As a child, Lynn spends her summers in “a swimming-hole-splashing, bear-watching, tree-climbing place called Elkmont,” near Gatlinburg, Tenn. She grows up and marries Edgar Faust, whose family has a summer cabin alongside Elkmont’s Bear Wallow Creek, where from the porch they watch “the fireflies put on a dazzling display.” Lynn gets very curious about these fireflies; she notices how they “flash in sync, then go dark, all at once—together!”

In her quest to learn more about them, she reads that synchronous fireflies (fireflies that flash simultaneously) are only known to exist in Southeast Asia, not North America. “Lynn knows that is just plumb wrong.” She’s observed them herself in Appalachia. So she writes to a biologist who has studied them and convinces him to come to the Great Smoky Mountains. By learning how to accumulate scientific data, collecting data, and collaborating with scientists, Lynn was instrumental in the process that led to the “light show fireflies of Elkmont [becoming] the first documented case of synchronous fireflies in the entire Western Hemisphere.”

Validating her hypothesis within the scientific community took years of persistent effort, and so this book provides testament to a person’s lifelong love of learning combined with her love of the outdoors. The book is targeted for four- to eight-year-olds, with early readers benefiting from help with some of the words. The artwork is warm and evocative, and complements the story well. It also does a particularly good job of capturing the ethereal feel of a firefly light show in a dark meadow.

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Vickie LeCroy is a retired educator and lives near Nashville, Tenn. She is a mother and grandmother.