The Spider Who Created the World - Hardcover

Kindergarten-Grade 3?MacDonald's original creation story, using elements (style, characters, theme) familiar to the genre, is a fine achievement. "When the sky was young and the world just a dream," Nobb the spider floats through the air looking for a place to set her egg. The Moon refuses her, fearing the spider's "tiny sharp fangs." The Sun shudders at her "sticky white thread." The Cloud rejects those "eight itchy legs." Nobb weaves a net, catches, and slices off a small piece of each of them in turn to make Fire, Water, and Earth-a firm home for her egg, from which all the creatures of the world hatched. From that day to this, Nobb resides with her friend the Air, "suspended halfway between the land and the sea and the stars." This simple tale of maternal creativity is enhanced by strong acrylic and gouache paintings. The broad outlines defining Nobb, Sun, and Moon are offset by swirled backgrounds and fine spider thread. Karas's palette balances delicate, near-neutral hues with deep-toned, saturated color. Text and pictures combine to make an effective, understated whole. Nobb is not quite Stellaluna, but her story could help forestall arachniphobia.?Patricia (Dooley) Lothrop Green, St. George's School, Newport, RI
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

"When the sky was young and the world just a dream, when the stars were still learning their names, a spider named Nobb came floating through the Air, at the end of a long, soft thread." So begins this well-crafted tale, an original creation myth. Nobb, searching for a place to lay her egg, is turned away by the inhospitable Sun, Moon and Cloud. Then Nobb gets tough. She captures a chunk from each entity and weaves them together to form a new planet, ingeniously squeezing the Cloud to form the oceans. MacDonald (Little Beaver and the Echo) finds poetry in concise, repetitive language, and explores a metaphor that young naturalists will easily grasp. Karas abandons the skittish cartoon figures of Mr. Carey's Garden (reviewed above) to experiment with thick outlines and multilayered, monochrome backgrounds in gouache and acrylic. When the opalescent Egg "hatche[s] out not just spiderlings but... all the birds-small and big-that fill the world to this day," Karas's bold shapes, which work so well in the simplest spreads, jostle one another amid a riot of color. Yet the effect is of a tinted slide under a microscope, alive with paramecium-not a bad impression of the earth's origins. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.