Customer Reviews

Very Busy Spider

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

My two-year-old and I love this book. It's about a spider who blows in, lands on a fence post, and spends the entire day building a web. She keeps working as various animals tempt her to do other things. At the end of the day, she catches a fly in her web and then falls asleep, tuckered out from her busy day. This book has several things going for it. First, it is a very simple narrative, making it one of the first stories that your child will be able to understand. Second, it is repetitive. Toddlers LOVE repetition and it is good for them. It helps them stay focused on the story, and gives them a chance to "read" something themselves, because they will naturally recite the repetitive bits as you come to them. Last of all, this book has several animals and the noises they make--very important for that fund of knowledge you are building. Oh, and I forgot the kicker: The spider web is made of some sort of 3D glue, making it tactile. My son loves running his fingers along it. I would have given this book 5 stars, but I love Carle's THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR even more!

I love this story of the determined spider who is blown on a fence and begins to weave her web, too busy to play with the other animals. She catches her fly at the end. The typical farm animals are represented and young children will be able to identify the animals by the pictures and can make the noises of the animals portrayed. The web can be felt with the fingertips, although my son was never and is still not impressed with this feat, although his mother is. Eric Carle is a masterful illustrator and story teller. If you have never read his books to young children and seen the fascination of a 2 year old sitting and waiting for the page to be turned, you are missing out. He does not have one bad book. His illustrations are stunning. We have a LOT of books at our house and this one is chosen at least once a week for a bedtime story. Highly highly recommended.

what an amazing book. as usual, eric carle's illustrations are outstanding, and the text is simplistic and includes animals that all children can identify with. the story features a spider who gets blown onto a fence post located on a farm. there she begins to spin her web (which is embossed on the page and allows the child to feel the story)and is tempted by many of the farm animals to stop. she however, continues to busily craft her magnificent web in the end catching her fly and falling fast asleep. the book is so perfect for toddlers that my two year old can now read the book to me! this is a must have for any child's library.

My daugther received this book when she was 1 and loved it from the start..We never got through the story itself...we just went through and did all the animal noises. Now my daughter is 4 and now she reads the book to me. My son is now 16 months and it's the first book he's been interested in. Again, we don't get through the story, just the animal noises, but, similar to his sister, I'm sure we'll graduate to actually reading the story. If you get this book, you won't be dissapointed.

We started reading this book to our 5 month old son and he loved it from the beginning! Every page has a different animal with the specific noises each animal makes. My son laughed at each page and especially loves the last page with the owl hooing. We read it almost every day!

While a spider weaves her web, animals of the farm come and ask her to play. The spider is too busy spinning her web. Adorable.

Several things make this book a true winner. First the repitition. The repitition is an excellent way for pre-readers and early reader to learn to read. (A whole language approach, but it gives kids some success.) Second, the tactile approach- as the spider spins her web you can feel the strings of the web and the fly that is buzzing around. This is a fun book to read and my son loves to touch the pages. The illustrations are adorable.

When I taught Kindergarten I always had a unit worked up around this book. There are so many creative and fun things you can do for activities and learning with this book. Now that I'm at home with my kiddos, we still do many of these fun things after we read this book. We made spiderwebs out of glue on black paper.

Enjoy.

For a very long time this book was my daughter's favorite. She loves having it read to her (especially when you do all the animal voices) and she thoroughly enjoys running her fingers across the raised spider's web on every page. We have shared this book together dozens and dozens of times. It is especially endearing to the 2-3 year old crowd.

Poor, the book was 3 inches by 3 inches and this was never indicated on the site. As a teacher I couldn't use it and had to spend more money and buy another one from scholastic books. Not a happy camper!!!

I love this book! I am a third grade teacher and I use this book every October in my Spider unit. No matter how many times the class has heard it, they're eager to hear it again. Part of its charm is being able to feel the "sliky thread" as the web is being built. I love that it comes as a board book so I can let my 17 month old son enjoy it on his own. A great book to read at the end of a busy day.

This is a great book not only because of the wonderful colors Eric Carle always uses, but because throughout the book children can feel the spider's web that goes across each page while you read the story to them. It keeps even the youngest of children interested and curious in what the web will become at the end of the book.