Dream Weaver (Rise and Shine)

"So tiny, yet the closer you look, the bigger she gets" perfectly captures Dream Weaver, Jonathan London and illustrator Rocco Baviera's evocative, hypnotic picture book about a little boy watching a tiny yellow spider, in the up-close-and-personal vein of Verdi and Stellaluna. If you're quiet and you really listen, can you hear the spider's feet on the sparkling web? Baviera's ultramagnified, crayon-pencil illustrations make you feel like it might be possible. The spider's web shimmers with the slightest wind, and a "raindrop on a fallen leaf is a forest pool." Magically, this talented pair manages to make the little yellow spider's webbed world soothing bedtime fare--the young boy goes home from spider gazing to dream about weaving a web of his own to catch fallen stars and return them to the night sky. (Great read aloud, ages 4 to 8) --Karin Snelson