Spinning Spiders

My niece absolutely LOVES spiders, and I purchased this book for her 4th birthday. I wanted something that provided real photos of spiders but presented them in a story-like format appropriate for younger children. This book turned out to be the perfect choice: each page features a different type of spider and 2-3 lines of text describing habits of spiders and/or asking simple, interactive questions (e.g. "What kind of animal is a spider?"). The only thing missing from this book was the actual NAMES of the spiders--my niece is old enough that she was curious about the different types of spiders and kept asking for their names. Otherwise, this is an excellent book for older pre-school aged children, and I rate it 4 1/2 stars.

My 6 year old is just beginning to read & chose this from his school library because he's fascinated with all things bug-like. He enjoyed reading this (with help from me on the big words) and was pulled in by the vibrant photography and grossed out by some of the facts (the egg sacs in particular). I asked him the questions presented in the story but he was too worn out to answer them. Still, we both learned lots of interesting new things about spiders. Did you know that some spiders have 8 eyes? I've seen the picture to prove it! Another highlight was seeing a close-up of an intricate zig-zag spider web & another very messy web. Wow, it'll almost make me think twice before shooing the critters out of my house & destroying their webs. I'd recommend this for a 6 year old boy or girl interested in bugs.