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Hair-Shooting Tarantulas and Other Weird Spiders
Students will learn how tarantulas defend themselves with their own spikey hairs. Do your readers know that there's a type of spider that looks like bird droppings? Readers learn all about weird spiders in this great edition. Stunning full-color photographs and easy text make this science reader a great choice for any elementary library.
* Reviews *
Bomb-factory beetles, leafy sea dragons, flying geckosthe I Like Weird Animals series is out to make all of them your next pet. That's an exaggeration, but Bredeson does a fine job of bringing these often fantastical creatures down to earth. Aside from the rather comical-looking happy-face spider, the spiders in this volume are all pretty darn creepy, from the spiny spider's satanic coloring to the water spider's rubbery legs. The short sentences are constructed of simple descriptions, though there is the occasional editorializing: "ICK. This spider looks like BIRD POOP!" Yes, the bird-dropping spider evades predators with its resemblance to poop, and such moments of levity will help some (but not all) kids overcome their natural phobias. Some of the boldfaced vocabulary words seem randomly chosen (like breathe), but overall the text works in concert with the photos so well that we don't need to know all the details of how the trapdoor spider catches its prey-we can see it coming for ourselves., Booklist October 1, 2009
RL
Grades
K-2 IL
Grades
K-3 GRL
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