Arachnophobics watch out for this very busy spider! (The Very Busy Spider - Eric Carle)

Member Name: Claribella

Product:	The Very Busy Spider - Eric Carle
Date:	07/01/09 (62 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A beautiful story.

Disadvantages: None.

Most of you will know Eric Carle from his most famous book 'The very hungry caterpillar'. He has also written a number of other books which I have yet to read with Noah but we got this one out of the library the other day and in our opinion (Noah can't speak yet but I'll speak for him!) it's just as good as the caterpillar.

Whats the story about?
Having been given the name 'The very busy Spider', it doesn't take a genius to figure out that it's about a very busy spider. The spider starts to spin a web and on each page a different animal asks it if it wants to play with them. For example the cow says 'Moo, moo want to eat some grass?'. Each time the spider 'Doesn't didn't answer because she was too busy spinning her web'. As the book progresses the web gets bigger and bigger untilt he cockeral asks her if she wants to catch a fly at which point she does. It ends with the owl asking who built this beautiful web but guess what? 'The spider didn't answer because she had fallen asleep'.

The text
There isn't alot of text on each page and it's great for young children because t's very repetative and once they learn to speak they can join in with 'But the spider didn't answer, she was too busy spinning her web'.

The illustration
Having illustrated this book as well as written it, it is in exactly the same style as 'The caterpillar'. I really like the drawings and although they aren't really vibrant they are somewhat quirky and appealing.

The web
As the story progresses the spiders web does too. It's grey in colour and slightly raised off the page giving it a brail-like feeling. This a really appealing part f the book and my son loved to touch it on every page. I used his hand to go all the way around the web which he enjoyed doing.

The one we got from the library was a board book so the pages were nice and thick and the size of the book was very handy. Noah was able to hold it with ease and turning the pages were even easier!

The actual story of these book is very educational. Noah learn about how spiders make there own homes which we hadn't talked about before. He also really enjoyed making the individual animal sounds and saying what they were.

Over all this is another successful write up from the award winning Eric Carle. If you haven't read it then I'd recommend giving it a try. It really is a lovely story and I'm pretty sure your young one will enjoy it as much as we did.

Summary: A great story and matches up to 'The very hungry caterpillar'.