The Spider Weaver - Margaret Musgrove

A Legend of Kente Cloth
Illustrated by Julia Cairns
Blue Sky Press, 2001
32 pages
Rating: 5
Endpapers: 9 patches - kente cloth in two patterns and the black and yellow spider

This gorgeous book, painted with greens, yellows, and blues of every hue, tells the legend of how seventeenth century Ghanan weavers discovered a spider's web so beautifully woven that they sought to recreate it.

So yes, the illustrations are lovely. And so is the writing. Musgrove tells the story simply, but uses word choices and literary elements that are wonderful models for writers. For example: dashes: "And everyone -- from the kings of the Ashanti people to the lowliest apprentice -- wore it." And similes: "The light from his lantern had fallen on an amazing sight, glowing like moonbeams agains the midnight sky" (and note the great verbs!).

WORD CHOICES:
detached
held fast
crumpled in my hands
doubtful
the beginnings of a new masterpiece
stood still in admiration
in the blink of an eye

PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES TO BEGIN SENTENCES:
Early the next morning
Past the tall silk cottons and papaya trees
On this night
In no time
In time

Also included are an interesting afterward and a prnunciation guide.

34. Say Goodbye - Lisa Gardner

Audio Read by Ann Marie Lee & Lincoln Hoppe
Published Jul, 2008
11 Unabridged CD's
13 hrs. 12 min.
368 pgs.
Rating: 5

This was a VERY disturbing story, so I hesitated before giving it a five...but it was quite brilliantly written, though grizzly....gory....and unbelievably sad. Spiders. Pregnancy. Relationships. Child pornography and abduction. FBI agents and informants. Throw that all into the mountains of Georgia and you have the basis for this suspenseful thriller. Told in a number of voices, with an epilogue that makes you cheer out loud -- 20 minutes after shedding tears of sadness....well, you get my drift. What a drive I had while listening, down I-5 from San Francisco to Bakersfield, across 40 to Needles, down again to Blythe, then I-10 to Tucson, it literally flew by. FBI Agent Kimberly Quincy is pregnant and on a case with a GBI agent who becomes a good friend, trying to find prostitutes that have been disappearing over a series of months in the Atlanta area. We keep hearing other voices, receiveing tidbits of information here and there that finally all fit together. It's a fantastic puzzle, quite cleverly written. But it's about young boys who are abducted, abused, held hostile physically and emotionally, and it's about how one of those boys behaves after he's grown up. Abducted by the Burger Man (SPOILER HERE) he later becomes the Burger Man. We also learn a great deal about spiders, their habits, their markings, their personalities per se.

Wow.