Rebecca's Birthday Present?

I read in a recent issue of Newsweek that the Miss Spider books by David Kirk have inspired a line of products that will be sold by Target. I'd never read the books, but I have a niece who will be four next month, and I wondered if she wouldn't like a book and some type of Miss Spider item to go along with it. So I made a trip to my local library. They had four of the books there, and I checked them all out.

The illustrations are very sharp and intense and a little surreal. Some of them look almost three-dimensional. I don't think it will take long for Kirk's style to become "Kirkian"--identifiable. The text is interesting because it's all in verse. Aspiring authors are always being told that editors aren't interested in verse, yet, here is a well-known writer using verse. Go figure.

My favorite of the four books I read was Miss Spider's Tea Party. It's about both alienation and counting. How cool is that? I'll check out the Miss Spider products next. At the very least I think maybe Rebecca will get Miss Spider's Tea Party and some sort of tea set. That would balance the tool kit we got her for Christmas.

Here is a neat idea for a real spider tea party.