Spartacus the Spider

PreS—Little Spartacus feels like a failure because of the poor quality of the silk he produces for his webs. Inspired by a passing mouse's news of some scientists who are trying to duplicate the texture of spider threads in order to create strong cables, he doubles and triples his thread until he has spun "the strongest string a spider ever spun." Excited, at first, when it catches every insect that flies in, he soon worries that he will catch too much: "The world would become a giant terrifying net. Unbreakable for eternity." So the little spider happily returns to spinning less-formidable webs. Familiar woodland animals—squirrel, mouse, crow, fly, and spider—are portrayed in roundheaded, pop-eyed cartoon style. Spartacus wears a collanderlike Roman helmet and carries a tiny shield and a spear made of fork tines affixed to a stick, but discards them in the end. Huge close-ups of the spider, mouse, and moth add an interesting variation to the illustrations. Would a hungry little spider that learns to spin a stronger web give up its newfound ability to catch food? This odd anthropomorphic tale offers neither an apparent moral nor a lesson of life, and it doesn't work as pure entertainment.—Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, OH