"Ogre-faced Spider
upside-down ready
tremendous eyes scan the dark
motion detected
snap open leg-net - bagged it!
(food never sees me coming)
Black-and-Yellow
Garden Spider
An orbweaver called it a night,
Belly stuffed in the dusk's waning light.
Then a hurrying fly
Crashed her web and stuck by,
And the spider shrugged, "Well ... one more bite."
Ray Orbweaver
Hung from dry silk rays that span a river,
Down to water's surface, holding fast,
Sticky threads that trap and then deliver,
Water strider dinner skimming past."
The three spider poems quoted above are found on a double-page entry titled Worldwide Webbers. The poems are accompanied by a descriptive paragraph concerning the way these spiders design webs to trap their prey. That opening is then followed by further scientific data for each of the three.
This is another celebration of the natural world from the team that gave us Leaf Litter Critters (2018), Superlative Birds (2019), and Amphibian Acrobats (2020). Of the 48,000 spider species that exist in the world, they have chosen 35 for their collection.
The research done to produce such a stellar collection of poetry and prose is quite remarkable. The organization of text is limited to double-page spreads that deal with particular topics: spectacular silk; food prep, mealtime, leftovers; on the prowl; tricky spider enemies; spider comes a-courting; spider mamas, to name some of them. The design for each topic is similar, as above noted. The illustrations are upbeat and often humorous. Language chosen is expressive, and the poetic forms used are varied.
A final tribute to the spiders themselves thanks them for the work they do to help humans provide protection for our Earth. They are an extremely important part of our ecosystem. And then, there's the backmatter! It begins with a comprehensive glossary, and moves on to provide notes on poetic form, spider identification for every spider illustrated, easy-to-follow guidance for a spider hunt, and further reading for any budding arachnologist. The final pages of comparison between a No. 2 pencil (which will be very familiar to the intended audience) and each included spider is a cool way to show accurate size.
As has been the case in their previous collaborations: IMPRESSIVE!
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