Sophie's Masterpiece
Sophie is an artist. She is also a house spider, but one that children will certainly cheer and not fear. The  webs she weaves are spectacular--some are stars, or hammocks, or sun  patterns--and her mama is very proud of her.  When she grows old enough to strike out on her own, however, she is not warmly greeted by the world at large. At  Beekman's Boardinghouse, a dull sort of place that "cried out for her talents," she only wants to beautify it with her  gossamer artistry. But even as she is spinning a web of curtains for the front parlor, "blending a golden thread of sun  into her silk," she is swatted by a screaming landlady! She scampers into the tugboat captain's closet where she sets to  work on making him a new suit, day after day, a sleeve here, a collar there. Once discovered there (the captain  screeches and climbs out onto the windowsill), she moves on yet again. Now a much older spider, she climbs up a long  staircase to settle into a young woman's knitting basket. One day, the woman discovers Sophie... and smiles! Sophie,  noticing that her new friend is pregnant and in need of a baby blanket, decides that she will spin one for her baby, a  cloth into which she weaves starlight, snippets of fragrant pine, wisps of night, old lullabies, playful snowflakes, and, in  the end, her very own heart. Illustrator Jane Dyer, who worked with Eileen Spinelli onWhen Mama Comes Home Tonight, has outdone herself inSophie's Masterpiece, painting this bittersweet story in gentle watercolors. She manages to convincingly  anthropomorphize Sophie, and paintings like the one of the courageous spider struggling up the long staircase, casting  long shadows, will linger long with readers. (Ages 4 and older)--Karin Snelson