ALA Booklist (Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 CST 2003)

Similar to the Sills' previous introductory books about animals, such as About Amphibians (2001) and About Insects (2000), this clearly written presentation offers the basic facts about arachnids in very simple language, enhanced by excellent, large-scale paintings. A typical double-page spread features a sentence or phrase about arachnids on one side, with a clearly delineated example of one species in its habitat on the other. The species is identified in small type, along with the plate number. On the last four pages, a small version of each picture is reproduced in black and white, along with more information about the individual species shown, which include the brown daddy longlegs, the California trapdoor spider, the eastern wood tick, and the giant desert hairy scorpion. This colorful volume is well designed for children intrigued by the eight-legged creatures and for teachers planning preschool and primary-grade units on arachnids.

Horn Book (Fri Apr 01 00:00:00 CST 2005)

"Somebody / loves you / deep and true. / If I weren't / so bashful / I'd tell you / who." Hopkins gathers Valentine's Day poems by children's poets Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Heidi Bee Roemer, and others. Since these are easy-reader poems, they tend toward the roses-are-red variety, but they are all sweet and sometimes even funny. Adinolfi's art features lovestruck kids of different ethnicities.

Kirkus Reviews

The Sills continue their tour ( About Fish , not reviewed, etc.) through the animal kingdom, introducing 16 spiders, mites, scorpions and other arachnids with full-page portraits, captioned by one-lined general observations: "Most arachnids are predators, hunting for and eating smaller animals." The presentation is somewhat uneven; though most of the paintings are meticulously exact close-ups. Both the Eastern Wood Ticks on a rabbit's ear and the young Garden Spiders launching themselves into the air on strands of silk are too tiny to make out useful details, and the follow-up notes at the end gather fascinating facts but do not consistently specify size, range, or, sometimes, even diet for the chosen examples. Still, the scenes of a (harmless) Daring Jumping Spider perched atop a bottle cap, or the (far from harmless) Brown Recluse lurking in an empty shoe, along with an array of fearsome-looking scorpions, should give casual browsers a delighted shiver or two. And young readers in general will benefit from the reminder (or news) that spiders have such a variety of close relatives. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)

School Library Journal

K-Gr 3-In this addition to the Sills' nature series, 15 full-page watercolor paintings depict 16 kinds of arachnids. The text briefly describes either a physical or behavioral characteristic common to all arachnids, or a special characteristic of the one shown. For instance, the line accompanying a painting of a brown daddy longlegs reads, "Arachnids have eight legs-" while the sentence, "Many arachnids spin silk to help them capture food" appears opposite a portrait of a golden silk spider in the middle of its web. In an afterword, short blocks of additional text offer more detail and miscellaneous bits of information. The primary focus here is on the paintings. The watercolors of invertebrates in natural settings are attractive and realistic, reflecting the messy details of nature-leaf litter, leaves with holes chewed in them, etc. However, the artwork isn't always entirely successful. For instance, the text states that arachnids have "-two main body parts," but it is hard to see two distinct parts in the painting of the desert tarantula since it shows only a side view of the spider and its front legs and carapace are virtually the same color. The depictions of ticks and garden spiderlings are so small that it is difficult to distinguish characteristics. Margery Facklam's Spiders and Their Web Sites (Little, Brown, 2001) provides more thorough descriptions of six of the same spiders, plus the daddy longlegs, and is illustrated with clear close-up drawings.-Karey Wehner, formerly at San Francisco Public Library Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.