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Up, Up, and Away
Product Code: 92216 ISBN: 978-1-58089-221-6 Ages: 4 - 7 Availability: In stock. Price: $16.95 Shop A Local Bookstore
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. This book is good for your brain because: Early Childhood Literacy, Insects and their Environments  Watch the book trailer! Click here to see all Charlesbridge books about insects and spiders. Download the cover image! If you like this book, you'll love: Also Available As:
Reviews Kirkus Reviews - June 1, 2009
"When the warm winds blow" in spring, a host of tiny garden spiderlings clamber out of the silken sac that protected them over the winter, and one—eluding hungry predators that include her own brothers and sisters—spins a long strand that carries her away on the breeze. After a long season in her new home she spins her own egg sac, fills it and then dies "as mother spiders do every year." Wadsworth retraces this life cycle in simple, non-anthropomorphic language, and Wynne's pale, naturalistic illustrations are just as restrained and matter-of-fact. Her delicate watercolor, gouache, ink and colored-pencil images include just enough detail to focus readers' attention on what matters, from Spider's many excapes from predators to her own successful trapping of prey. Along with being good preparatory material for a shared reading of Charlotte's Web (obviously intentional, as this book is dedicated to E.B. White), this may draw budding naturalists looking for a less melodramatic alternative to Sandra Markle's Sneaky, Spinning Baby Spiders
ForeWord Magazine - July 1, 2009
A mother spider lays her eggs and wraps them "round and round with her strong silk thread." Detailed illustrations and bold language make this tale of birth and death, autumn and spring, fresh, exciting, sensational as life. A great update for elementary school libraries and classrooms.
Booklist - August 1, 2009
In the fall, a garden spider lays her many eggs and encases them in a sac of silk. In the spring, the young spiders emerge. The narrative follows a particular spiderling as she searches for food, avoids predators, and spins a silk thread that catches an air current, carrying her to a new locale, where she spins a web, eats her prey, creates her own egg sac, and dies. In the spring, the cycle begins again. Simply told with wellchosen words and phrases, the story reads aloud well. An appended page provides further information about the type of spider portrayed. Wynne uses watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil to add hue and shading to the precise ink drawings that define the spiders and their surrounding. The illustrations vary in tone from pastoral landscapes that set the scene to close-ups of dramatic escapes from predators that look monstrously large from the spider’s point of view. A well-crafted nonfiction picture book.
Bees Knees Reads - September 1, 2009
We've been staying at my folk's house for a week now. It's the same home I grew up in as a child and I am reminiscing about all the fun times I had playing in the wonderful big backyard, rescuing bees from the pool, feeding the anthills sugarcubes and admiring spider webs glistening with dew in the early morning.Author Ginger Wadsworth's latest book release Up, Up, and Away just arrived in my mother's mailbox and my son (who loves spiders)immediately snatched it from my hands and ran to the sofa to read it for us. I knew he would love this one.....especially the part where the spider "bites her prey with powerful jaws and sucks up juicy beetle guts or sips fly stew." EEEEeeewwwww!!!! ;) Ginger Wadsworth knows just how to hold a little one's attention. The story teaches us garden spider facts while following a little spider who searches for a home of her own. While there are a few moments that may be a little tough for a small child to grasp, (when "a brother crunches a sister for lunch" or when the mother spider "ties the egg sac tight, then dies")they are true to life and nature. These are important moments to take advantage of allowing us as parents and teachers to discuss the natural cycle of death and new life. Patricia J. Wynne's illustrations are beautiful, bold and colorful. She depicts the Zipper Spider aka the Banana Spider of the South. We had lots of these in our garden in Virginia. I haven't come across any in So. Cal yet. They have bright yellow and black markings on their abdomens and spin silky webs with thick white zig-zags down the center. School Library Journal - September 1, 2009
This book describes the life cycle of the black-and-yellow Argiope aurantia (a type of garden spider). After a mother lays her eggs, the spiderlings hatch inside the egg sac and wait for spring to chew a hole and emerge into the sunlight. Seeking a permanent home, one young femaile "spins out silken thread into the breeze" and floats upward, ballooning gracefully on air currents, and eventually finds a safe haven where she matures, meets a mate (there is no mention of details), and lays her own eggs, beginning the cycle anew. The clear, simple text is perfectly accompanied by delicate, bright-hued watercolors. Kids who want more may enjoy the brilliant photos in Nic Bishop's Spiders (Scholastic, 2007), even if they are not ready for the more in-depth text. Wadsworth and Wynne have created a sturdy framework for introducing their subject's architecturally elegant orb web.
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