Through the course of a year, the life cycle of garden spiders is described in an engaging and factual text. After a mother spider creates her egg sac in the fall, the spiderlings hatch the following spring and compete for scarce food sources. Threatened by a lizard, a bluebird, and one another (“a brother crunches a sister for lunch!”), the young spiders soon float away on their silken threads, like “eight-legged kites.” “Ballooning spiders fill the sky, sisters and brothers drifting this way and that, to hunt for new homes.” Arriving at a farm, a spider spins her web and spends spring and summer at her new locale, repeating the cycle anew. Colorful and precise illustrations track the arachnids from egg to adulthood, and a final page titled “The Spin on Garden Spiders” supplements the information of the main text. (Ages 5–9)

One spider's search for a home of her own Each spring hundreds of spiders hatch from their egg sacs and begin their struggle to survive. They must protect themselves not only from predators, but also from their very own siblings! Ginger Wadsworth and Patricia J. Wynne chronicle the real-life drama of one spider as she eats, grows, spins a dragline of silk, and soars up, up, and away to find a home of her own.