Wonderworldly! It Fell From the Sky by The Fan Brothers

IT FELL FROM THE SKY ON A THURSDAY.

It is a shiny, translucent, perfectly round thingie, with sinuous ribbons of soft color inside. Ladybug was the eyewitness. She said it bounced three times. Inchworm declines it bounced only two times, and after, all he was the counting expert. Frog shot out his long tongue and gave it a taste. It wasn't good. Adjusting his monocle, Grasshopper opined studiously....

"IT IS NOT OF EARTHLY ORIGIN!"

But just in case it was an earthly chrysalis, Luna Moth stood guard all night. But it didn't hatch. At sunrise Spider arrives and announces that the marvel is HIS. He claimed it fell right into his web.

NOBODY REMEMBERED THE WEB BEING THERE BEFORE, BUT IN FAIRNESS, NOBODY REMEMBERED IT NOT BEING THERE, EITHER.

No one dared question Spider as he begin to spin out grandeous plans to exhibit his treasure to the world. He named it WonderVille.

And with much construction assistance from the ants, WonderVille became a miraculous Mecca for multitudes of sightseers who came from far and wide. They grumbled when Spider raised the admission charge all too often, but they still came. He became fabulously rich, but the visitors from near and far kept coming and coming to see the celestial Wonder of the World, until...

They stopped coming.

WHERE HAD EVERYONE GONE?

THAT WAS BEFORE THE UNEXPECTED DISASTER!

Something with five nimble appendages reached down and snatched the wonder back up toward the sky.

Sic transit gloria!

Spider was ignored and the garden's inhabitants went back to their plebian lives, until. . .

. . . One night, inspired by the stars, Spider climbed high up to the dandelion's flower and started to spin again... . a giant web from tree to tree that was bound to capture more wonders from above...

And, as Hamlet said to Horatio, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy," and as a wondrous assortment of otherworldly objects--pushpins and spools, legos and bottle caps--continued to fall from the skies, ripe for exhibit by an imaginative entrepreneur, Spider was back in business with his new and improved web of wonders, in The Fan Brothers' latest, It Fell from the Sky (Simon and Schuster, 2021).

In this wondrously illustrated modern fable of . . . what? The errors of exploitation and greed, the promise of seeing wonders in the flotsam and jetsam of the world? Whatever the moral of the tale might be, in this latest eye-catching work of art, tiny insects in their miniature natural world are depicted joyfully in the Fan Brother's latest picture book.

Says School Library Journal, "A whimsical story of what happens when an everyday item is suddenly seen through new eyes."

For more of the fantastic and fantastical artistry of the Fan Brothers, see their acclaimed https://booksforkidsblog.blogspot.com/search?q=The+Night+Gardener here.

A Little Help from Her Friends! Nothing Scares Spider! by S. Marendaz

SPIDER IS PLANNING A BIG ADVENTURE!

SHE WAS GOING TO BE AN EXPLORER.

"I AM GOING TO SEE THE WHOLE WIDE YARD!"

Her friends, Caterpillar, Bumblebee, and Ladybug, who lack her bite and web-weaving powers, are frightened for her.

"WHAT ABOUT FEARSOME FISH, HUNGRY BIRDS, AND THE CLEVER CAT???" THEY ASK.

Spider chuckles at her feckless friends. Spiders don't fear anything! she boasts.

And what about THEM, alone without Spider's defensive powers?

Spider expansively promises to leave a lifeline of web behind her for fearful friends to tug on if they need her powers.

BUT ONLY FOR EMERGENCIES!" SPIDER INSISTS.

Freedom at last, thinks Spider, making it to the tall trees, oblivious to the peckish redbird with an open beak about to dive down and have her for lunch. But suddenly there's TWANG and a tug on the web from Ladybug, who has detected an interloper in her flower. Dragged back, Spider grumpily points out the it's only Bumblebee backing into the bloom. Unaware of the bird, Spider hustles back to cool half of her feet in the pond, where a hungry Fearsome Fish is rising to the surface about to suck her in.

"TWANG!"

Back snaps Spider to where Caterpillar is cowering from something big and frightful behind him.

IT'S YOUR OWN SHADOW," SHOUTS SPIDER. "THIS WEB IS FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY!"

But when Spider returns to continue her adventure, she finds herself finally facing FEARSOME FROG--alone.

If ever Spider has needed a few good friends, it's now, in S. Marendaz's Nothing Scares Spider! (Tiger Tales, 2021), as the tables are turned in this funny story that proves that a friend in need is a friend indeed! And Spider learns that perhaps adventuring is better done with a retinue of those friends you can trust. Kids will enjoy seeing Carly Gledhill's hapless comic critters discovering their courage when they come to the rescue of their friend. It's one for all and all for one, in this story of fear and friendship.

Creepy-Crawly Cop: Bug Patrol by Denise Dowling Mortensen

4:53 "EMERGENCY!
REPORT OF MOTHER LOSING FLEA.

"DOGGIE SHOOK
A BIT TOO HARD.
LITTLE FLEA
LOST IN YARD!"

Wee-o! WEE-0! WEE-0! WOOO!

BUG MOBILE COMING THROUGH!

This is the city. Officer Bob is on the job!

Behind the wheel of his cruiser, Officer Bob begins his shift writing a citation to a gang of urban ants swarming in a crude donut-kidnaping caper. When those ant antics are calmed, it’s on to the mall, where hot-rodding beetles are using the parking lot for drag racing, bending fenders right and left.

Tempers cooled and the rowdy drivers cited, Officer Bob scarcely has a moment before breaking up some rough-riding motorcyclist spiders. And then comes the call....

3:25.

“Sidewalk swell,
Picket line.
At Roach Hotel.

Wee-O! WEE-0! WEE-0! WOO!

It’s an OCCUPY ROACH HOTEL in progress as the roaches demonstrate against unsafe living conditions. “Unsafe for My Babies” proclaims one picket sign, as the roach parents protest outside the offending establishment. Officer Bob steps in, judiciously arranging for the relocation of the creepy crawlers’ families to the Paradise Landfill.

Our six-legged cop hopes to finish his shift with an Amber Alert search for the missing flea-babe in the grass, but no sooner is the flea family’s unit  reunited than it’s off to answer a call complaining of partying crickets disturbing the evening peace!

”They just want to
chirp and leap.
Neighbors want
a good-night’s sleep!

There are a million stories in the city for Officer Bob Bug, in Denise Dowling Mortensen’s latest picture book, Bug Patrol (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012). Illustrator Cece Bell’s childlike blackline drawings of lawbreaking creepy-crawling citizens of Bug City are artfully laid out with Mortensen’s perky quatrains, with their repeated refrain of WEE-Os and ”Officer Bob coming throughs” to encourage listener participation..

For those annual early childhood “community helpers” units, (as well as beginning reader fare) pair this one with Michelle Meadows’ Traffic Pups (see my review here) for first responder fun.