SPECKLE THE SPIDER

Driven by dreams of dancing his way to stardom, a self-absorbed Bahamas spider hops a bunch of bananas bound for the mainland. Pairing up with species-mate Suzy, “who could do a pretty good somersault,” Speckle quickly becomes the toast of the local zoo—until, suddenly weary of the limelight, he heads home (with Suzy passively following), concluding “it wasn’t the cameras and fan mail that made him feel special anymore. It was his family and friends.” Despite an applied layer of fuzz on the front cover, Speckle is as two dimensional as his silent mate/dancing partner, and though the capering arachnids in Dodson’s energetic illustrations are joined by an attached booklet of spider facts, other documents in envelopes and a closing double foldout, neither Speckle nor his aspirations are likely to win the sort of reader attention and sympathy that Marsha Diane Arnold’s Prancing, Dancing Lily (illustrated by John Manders, 2004), Carolyn Crimi’s Tessa’s Tip-Tapping Toes (illustrated by Marsha Gray Carrington, 2002) and like tales of would-be terpsichoreans earn. (Picture book. 6-8)