Spiderology

by Michael Elsohn Ross

Book Overview

Describes the physical characteristics and habits of spiders and provides instructions for finding, collecting, and keeping spiders. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 157505387X
• ISBN13: 9781575053875
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Carolrhoda Books
• Length: 48 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 9.7" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 7 to 11 years
• Grade Range: Grades 2 to 6

Customer Reviews

Great for Kids with a Budding Interest in Spiders!

This is our second encounter with the Backyard Buddies series and I have to say, I'm quite pleased with both. Spiderology offers both explanations and hands on activity opportunities for kids that are simple but engaging for kids ages 4-8 (definitely should be parent supervised since we're talking about spiders here). Spiderology starts out with the basics of what Spiderology is and a brief bit about where to find spiders, their homes, and an activity designed to give kids an up close look at how spiders live -- the Spider Inn. From there it goes into several pages of activities that kids can try some are hands on, but at this point most are imagination exercises...most of the hands on and experimenting exercises come later in the book after more factual information about spiders has been given. Spiderology encourages a hands exploration, fact finding, and questioning by children well before they get into the more lengthy scientific information on spiders, which I think is good...I mean, the book DOES give out some basics and minor warnings about poisonous spiders before sending kids out to explore habitats and spiders themselves. So they aren't going out blind, but this "phase" is designed to stimulate a keen interest, encourage children to formulate questions which they will likely be able to answer either directly through the reading or as a result of experiments done later in the book. My only concern is that the book did an EXCELLENT job of pointing out that most spiders are perfectly safe to watch and handle...only a tiny fraction of spiders pose any threat to humans...BUT, children are more susceptible to poisons, so I feel that the author and publisher should have made more effort to warn about this...at the very least, there should be a recommendation BEFORE kids get started on Spiderology, to look up (with pictures), either on the internet or in another book) which spiders are poisonous, especially for YOUR area where you live...kids should SEE what the poisonous spiders in their geographical area look like and be warned about their habitat prior to doing any of the activities in this book. Additionally, while I normally champion the idea of children doing as much as they can on their own...with animals, particularly any that have the potential to be poisonous, there should be a recommendation to get parents help in collecting spiders...at least a recommendation that a parent or other adult approve the critter before it's scooped up in a container for observation. While this is a concern for me...it's common sense too, if your kids are checking out books about insects, specially spiders or snakes, parents would be wise to point out (often) cautions and be watchful of their children trying to handle them. What I like about this series is the way the information is presented, because the children are encouraged to gather information, formulate questions and do some minor observation prior to doing the reading in the book, they