The Adventure of Optimism! The Weaver by Quian Shi

All spiders lead a life of adventure.

Once they are born, they wave goodbye to each other and hitch a ride on the wind.

It's true. Newly hatched spiderlings spin little parasails and go "ballooning" to find their own places in space.

Stanley the spider floats down to his perfect place, where he spins his web between a clover and a twig and sets out decorating it with his favorite precious things.

No, not the shells of captured beetles, nor the wings of butterflies snared. He fills it with lovely leaves of maples and lindens and gingkos and bits of feathers and bottle tabs. Stanley loves his collection.

But then the rain comes ...

And all but for one bright maple leaf, it washes his treasures away. Stanley tries to secure the leaf safely, but a big breeze blows it away, too.

Stanley has lost everything...

Or has he? He works all night , repairing his web strung strong between two tall weeds, by the light of two fireflies, recreating his memories of his precious things, spun into the fabric, the design of his web itself. His memories are not lost, even when it is time for Stanley to start another adventure, in Qian Shi's love parable of art and memory in her The Weaver (Anderson Press, 2018).

In her delicately stylized illustrations and spare poetic text, author-illustrator Qian Shi affirms that, although all sorts of winds blow and rains fall, art and memory remain with us in our own history. As a study in the graceful way to handle loss, Stanley's story carries a surprising amount of emotional heft, says Kirkus, and Booklist adds, Though the concept of ephemera may be somewhat esoteric for younger children, the underlying, sympathetically portrayed message of finding ways to cope with losing beloved things is one readers may relate to and appreciate."