Customer Reviews

The Roly Poly Spider

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As a preschool teacher I can say that my children enjoyed this book. The story is a light-hearted poem that teaches children about nature and the food chain.

The roly poly spider eats a lot and gets rounder and rounder. She waits for her prey on the side of her web and watches them squirm. Once she knows they are stuck in her web, she smiles and then eats them. I very much enjoyed the rhyming in this story. It flowed properly and almost in song. Some of the pictures were a bit morbid for really young kids who like flies and other insects such as, "The roly poly spider was casting out a line: she hooked a spotted beetle and reeled him in to dine. 'Sorry,' said the beetle, 'I really shouldn't stay.' But the roly poly spider drank beetle juice that day." and you see the beetle drained with it's eyes popped out of its head with a straw in its back and juice being sucked out of him, but in a cute cartoon style. This book is fun and teaches kids about the food chain and how and what spiders eat; I just wish the spider got eaten in the end to show the full cycle.

I picked this book up at the library without looking through it first. That is the last time I will do that! I sat down to read it to my 3 and 4 year olds and was horrified by the content. There are better ways to illustrate the food chain than to have the spider is eat its "friends". The "prey" were way too personalized.

Inside the flap of the book it says:

"The roly-poly spider longs to have some friends for lunch--literally! A beetle, a caterpillar, and a bee soon find that their hungry friend wants more than just their company. She is planning to eat them!"

My son would sign this book out everyday when he was in preschool. We used to read this nightly at least twice. Recently my son graduated high school and I was feeling sorry for myself and missing that little boy. I found this book at Amazon, ordered it, wrote a little note inside for my son and then we read it together-twice. I hope he passes on those great memories when he has children.

This book is odd if not disconcerting. The personification of insects then subsequent dismemberment and consumption of insect "friends" is a bit over the top. This book is geared towards the 2-4 year old age range - cute bugs being turned into a drink/food (a confused beetle with a straw out of it's head, a caterpillar turned into a hot dog as the caterpillar is looking at himself about to be eaten, etc.) If you look at it from a child's point of view, it might be confusing if not upsetting to see animals' legs being eaten (like the case of the bee who has his knees ripped off so the spider can eat them with it's tea) or seeing the spider eat it's "friend" after having them over for lunch. There's better books to teach the food chain concept, that's for sure. I'd be inclined to give this two stars if it had better illustrations, but it doesn't even have that, so, one star it is.

The roly poly spider eats a lot and gets rounder and rounder. She waits for her prey on the side of her web and watches them squirm. Once she knows they are stuck in her web, she smiles and then eats them. I very much enjoyed the rhyming in this story. It flowed properly and almost in song. Some of the pictures were a bit morbid for really young kids who like flies and other insects such as, "The roly poly spider was casting out a line: she hooked a spotted beetle and reeled him in to dine. 'Sorry,' said the beetle, 'I really shouldn't stay.' But the roly poly spider drank beetle juice that day." and you see the beetle drained with it's eyes popped out of its head with a straw in its back and juice being sucked out of him, but in a cute cartoon style. This book is fun and teaches kids about the food chain and how and what spiders eat; I just wish the spider got eaten in the end to show the full cycle.

Best. Book. Ever.

My husband got super-disturbed the first time he heard me reading this to the baby, and he gave it away to a friend, but I bought another copy of it on Amazon because its AMAZING. I take it to clubs and read it to people out on the porch.

This book is about a spider who can't keep any friends because she eats all of the bugs that come to play with her. And that's it. There's no lesson here. There's just a hungry spider who does what spiders to, albeit in rhyme. It's fantastic.

If you're looking for non-preachy, non-moralistic stories for your kids, this is probably the best place to start.

Also, for alternative parents looking for subversive material, grab Click, Clack, Moo, which is vaguely an explanation of how unions, and possibly Communism, work.

My children LOVE this story! My 1st grader brought it home from the school library. All three loved it so much and thought it was so funny, I had to buy their own copy. It is one of their favorite books. It is rather gross and the spider is eating a bunch of bugs. Of course, the kids love the gross part of it. It has a great little rhyme and uses quotations. It is just a fun gross story that kids love, especially little boys (though my daughter loves it too!).

We just heard this story for the first time at the Library Story Time. All the kids and the parents really enjoyed it. The kids thought the picture of the caterpillar as a hotdog was hilarious. I mean really, these are kids and they love catchy rhyming stories with funny pictures, which is exactly what this book is. I think a few of the adults that have previously reviewed the book are putting a little too much thought into the pictures and the food chain and underestimating the imaginations of our little ones. I agree with the one reviewer, it would have been great if the spider could have been eaten in the end. So get the book, unless you are the type of person who instead of killing unwanted bugs, you catch them and release them outside.