Pre-order Chicory founder Chris Baker's new picture book!
Written by Chris Baker and illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler, Weaver and the Web comes out July 7th from Godwin Books. All copies of purchased through Chicory Naturalist will be signed by the author. Feel free to leave an inscription request at checkout!
Experience an evening from the perspective of a common garden spider who could be weaving worlds just outside your door...
Once night falls, Weaver emerges from the rolled-up leaf she sleeps in during the day, and begins searching for the perfect place to spin her latest web. She climbs up and scurries down, and winds around and around until she’s created something perfect. But right after she catches her first crane fly, her web stretches and snaps and…Weaver is fallllllllling down. How will she catch bugs now?
Follow along as Weaver scuttles through the night and, with a bit of help, finds the perfect spot for web-making.
Praise~
"Weaver is never visually anthropomorphized, with all eight eyes and mandibles depicted in close-ups. This has the effect of heightening the astonishing achievement of this very nonhuman engineer...She's a brown-and-black figure in a mostly grayscale world; she perceives it most keenly through her web, which vibrates in prismatic color when a fly lands in it. Altogether, a beguiling peek at and appreciation of one of nature's everyday wonders."
★ Starred Review — The Horn Book Magazine
"The book’s most arresting spread comes when a child’s enormous face looms over a terrified Weaver, the palette draining to graphite and shadow while Weaver glows warmly orange at the center—fear, wonder, and the precariousness of small lives rendered in a glorious single image...An exceptional pairing of text and art that will reward arachnophobes, spider lovers, and the generally curious."
★ Starred Review — Kirkus Reviews
"A spotted orbweaver spider's nightly routine unfurls in Baker and Eggenschwiler's pleasingly perceptive, arachnology-guided tale. Text and art take the arachnid's perspective, with finely wrought opening grayscale artwork conveying hairy brown Weaver's low-vision experience of the world...Weaver's instinct-led exploits make for riveting reading."
★ Starred Review — Publishers Weekly
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Chris Baker is an author, recovering arachnophobe, and founder of a nature-focused bookshop, Chicory Naturalist. Their debut picture book, On a Mushroom Day, received a Riverby Award for excellence in nonfiction. Chris is also a certified forager and enthusiastic outdoor educator, leading walks in the Hudson Valley bioregion. Running through all of her professional endeavors is a passion for reconnecting broken chains of generational knowledge about the natural world. They live a few blocks from the Hudson River with their spouse, child and two calico cats.
Byron Eggenschwiler is an award-winning illustrator living in Calgary, Alberta. Some of his books include The Little Ghost Who Was a Quilt by Riel Nason, Operatic by Kyo Maclear, Coyote Tales by Thomas King, and The Strangest Thing in the Sea by Rachel Poliquin. Byron's work has also appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Walrus, GQ and O, The Oprah Magazine.
