Spidernaut: Arabella, the Spider in Space

by Jodie Parachini, Dragan Kordic (Illustrator)

Overview

Told in the first person as if written by Arabella herself, she describes how she was the first spider to spin a web in space in 1973, and even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. Reading Arabella's diary and the story, we learn how spiders spin webs and why this experiment, suggested by a high school student, was important.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807504406
Publisher:	Whitman, Albert & Company
Publication date:	10/01/2021
Series:	Animalographies
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
Lexile:	AD980L (what's this?)
File size:	20 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Jodie Parachini is an American/British author and editor who currently lives in Hertfordshire, England. Jodie has written fifteen children’s books, including Listening to the Stars, HeroRat!, and Flicker Finds Her Glow. In addition to earning multiple starred reviews for her work, Jodie has been named a finalist in the PBParty competition, the Macmillan Write Now Prize, and the OhZoe Rising Talent Award.
Dragan Kordić is a Croatian illustrator working on children's books and young adult literature. Besides being an art enthusiast, he finds inspiration in exploring nature, traveling, and reading.

Editorial Reviews

"Rich, textured illustrations that fill the pages with blues and golds perfectly complement the narrative. Purchase for nonfiction collections about space exploration."—School Library Journal

"This title in the Animalographies series takes a clever approach, and the cheerful, textured illustrations make the spiders—and space—a thing of beauty."—Booklist

From the Publisher

09/01/2021

K-Gr 3—Told from the point of view of Arabella, one of two spiders to travel to the International Space Station in 1973, this delightful book introduces readers to a little-known experiment that will engage space lovers and arachnid fans alike. It is filled with facts about orb-weavers, who eat their protein-packed webs before they start spinning a new one, as well as information about Skylab and some of the experiments scientists have conducted in space over the years. The connection to contemporary students is subtly woven throughout the book. The first mission to see if spiders could spin a web in space was prompted by the question of a high school student named Judith Miles, and subsequent missions included partnerships with students to observe spiders in their classroom and compare against the observations of the astronauts, as well as a student-designed experiment that sent a jumping spider into space. The unsurprising death of Arabella and Anita, her spidernaut partner, while still in space is glossed over in the text, but is mentioned in the list of "Spider Facts" at the end of the book. Rich, textured illustrations that fill the pages with blues and golds perfectly complement the narrative. The multiple double-page spreads help give the impression of the expanse of outer space, particularly for one tiny spider. VERDICT Purchase for nonfiction collections about space exploration.—Jen McConnel, Longwood Univ., VA

School Library Journal

2021-07-27
The story of an experiment designed to answer a high school student’s question to NASA.

Told in first person—perhaps not the best choice as the arachnid narrator is called upon to describe her own death and subsequent events in the later going—the chronicle begins in 1972 with a query about whether spiders can spin webs in space. Popped into small tubes with dead flies for provisions, Arabella and another orb spider, Anita, were transported to Skylab 3 in 1973 and released into cages where, after a day or so of floating and a “wonky” preliminary effort, both actually produced creditable versions of their earthly webs. A better title for this might be Spiders in Space, because along with a tally of scientific findings, Arabella goes on post-mortem to describe several later visits to the International Space Station by various eight-legged relatives (one of whom, a Johnson jumping spider named Nefertiti, actually “made it home again” in 2012). “That’s one small step for man but one giant leap for spiders!” she concludes. The simple illustrations largely tend to close-ups of Arabella, and if all of the adults in view seem to be White, Kordić does tuck in one late scene of a racially diverse trio of modern young children comparing a “spidernaut” with a specimen in a classroom terrarium.

A true tale of life in space, ably if not spectacularly spun. (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews