Daddy Longlegs Spiders by Jill C. Wheeler

I was attracted to this series because it talks of  individual spider species rather than lumping all spiders together in one, big, undifferentiated mass.  I've read Daddy Longlegs Spiders, Hobo Spiders, and Crab Spiders, all by Jill C. Wheeler, and that remains the series' chief virtue. It is good to see a series of books that recognizes that not all spiders are the same and that realizes that children can cope with this fact.

Otherwise, I'd rate the three as ok. Not great, not awful, ok. The pictures are good and might be useful to a reader of any age who is trying to learn to identify spiders.

I can't tell what age group the text is aimed at. The books are all written in short, declarative sentences which set up a rather monotonous mental rhythm (I would not like to try reading them out loud), but there doesn't seem to be any particular care with the vocabulary; I'd say they have more than their fair share of "long words."

Probably worth checking out in a bag load of library books, but not really worth hunting for unless you've a young spider enthusiast waiting for them.