Through the course of a year, the life cycle of garden spiders is described in an engaging and factual text. After a mother spider creates her egg sac in the fall, the spiderlings hatch the following spring and compete for scarce food sources. Threatened by a lizard, a bluebird, and one another (“a brother crunches a sister for lunch!”), the young spiders soon float away on their silken threads, like “eight-legged kites.” “Ballooning spiders fill the sky, sisters and brothers drifting this way and that, to hunt for new homes.” Arriving at a farm, a spider spins her web and spends spring and summer at her new locale, repeating the cycle anew. Colorful and precise illustrations track the arachnids from egg to adulthood, and a final page titled “The Spin on Garden Spiders” supplements the information of the main text. (Ages 5–9)