ISBN 059006519x - Usually, when I come across a board book with a spectacularly illustrated cover, I'm let down when I open it up. David Kirk is absolutely fantastic and so, it turns out, is every single page inside.

Miss Spider would like to play, but all the other bugs are afraid of her. Rhyming text counts the bugs, from the two beetles who ran away to the eleven bugs who finally came to visit - bringing twelve flowers as gifts.

It's great, the chance to work on numbers with your child, but for me the illustrations are what knocks it out of the park. The details are excellent: the reflection in the teapot and the twelve cupcakes when her eleven bugs come to visit, for example. The colors are vivid and the images nearly 3D. Board book pages are sturdy and can take a bit of a beating. My single complaint is that the cover board seems to be coated with a rubbery plastic layer which peels fairly easily. The bugs aren't particularly creepy or scary, which works for me - I've got a shortage of Halloween-themed board books and this one is going to fill in. I hardly think anyone will mind!

- AnnaLovesBooks ( )

Group R