I do not like spiders. They give me the creepy crawlies, the heebie-jeebies – you name it, they give it to me. However, there are some people who like them, and guess what – my daughter is one of them. She finds insects fascinating. She catches moths and releases them outside, rather than see them be killed. For children like her, I’m reviewing “Spider Watching,” by Vivian French. If this was a Tristi Pinkston book, it would be called, “Spider Squashing.”
This picture book is set up in an interesting format. On the right page is a story, and on the left page is a series of facts about spiders. There aren’t any actual pictures of spiders (thank goodness) – they are all depicted by the talented illustrator Alison Wisenfeld with remarkable detail, down to the tiny bristles on their legs.
The story is about a house full of children that love spiders. They like going out to the shed, where a bunch of spiders have built their webs. When their cousin Helen comes for a visit, she is disgusted by their spider-watching habits, but as she learns more about spiders and sees how they can repair holes in their webs, she too becomes fascinated with them.
On the nonfiction side of the book, we learn many interesting facts:
female tarantulas can live past the age of twenty
spiders have fangs, for neutralizing their prey
they aren’t insects; they’re arachnids
scorpions are also arachnids
spider webs are liquid when they come out of the spider and harden when they hit the air
there are more than thirty thousand different kinds of spiders
northern black widows, red widows, and funnel weavers are all very poisonous
I liked this book because it combines information with a story. I now know more about spiders than I did before, and my kids found it a fascinating read as well.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got the heebie-jeebies and I swear I can feel things crawling all over me. I’m going to go take a shower.
(This book was published in 1994 by Walker Books.)
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