“When the warm winds blow” in spring, a host of tiny garden spiderlings clamber out of the silken sac that protected them over the winter, and one—eluding hungry predators that include her own brothers and sisters—spins a long strand that carries her away on the breeze. After a long season in her new home she spins her own egg sac, fills it and then dies “as mother spiders do every year.” Wadsworth retraces this life cycle in simple, non-anthropomorphic language, and Wynne’s pale, naturalistic illustrations are just as restrained and matter-of-fact. Her delicate watercolor, gouache, ink and colored-pencil images include just enough detail to focus readers’ attention on what matters, from Spider’s many escapes from predators to her own successful trapping of prey. Along with being good preparatory material for a shared reading of Charlotte’s Web (obviously intentional, as this book is dedicated to E.B. White), this may draw budding naturalists looking for a less melodramatic alternative to Sandra Markle’s Sneaky, Spinning Baby Spiders (2008). (afterword) (Informational picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-58089-221-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2009
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
Rylant (Henry and Mudge and the Sneaky Crackers, 1998, etc.) slips into a sentimental mode for this latest outing of the boy and his dog, as she sends Mudge and Henry and his parents off on a camping trip. Each character is attended to, each personality sketched in a few brief words: Henry's mother is the camping veteran with outdoor savvy; Henry's father doesn't know a tent stake from a marshmallow fork, but he's got a guitar for campfire entertainment; and the principals are their usual ready-for-fun selves. There are sappy moments, e.g., after an evening of star- gazing, Rylant sends the family off to bed with: ``Everyone slept safe and sound and there were no bears, no scares. Just the clean smell of trees . . . and wonderful green dreams.'' With its nice tempo, the story is as toasty as its campfire and swaddled in Stevenson's trusty artwork. (Fiction. 6-8)
Pub Date: April 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81175-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
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