“Little Miss Spider at Sunnypatch School” by David Kirk

Many years ago, this was a well-loved bedtime story at our house. Sadly, it went the way of so many books these days: the binding quickly wore away, separating the book into several parts and we eventually had to throw it out. Sometimes, I can make adequate repairs to a book’s binding with packing tape, but often, it’s a lost cause. Modern-day book binding is one of those topics that I occasionally rant about. Like so many other products in today’s marketplace, it is very cheaply done with no concerns about how long the product will last. I think about how many great family books have been lovingly passed down through generations and I worry about this and future generations. What will be left to pass down? We have some very old books which have been graciously given to us or bought at antique shops and their bindings are almost always in very good shape. But many of the books we’ve bought new since we’ve started our family usually last just a year or two before the binding starts to fall apart. Frustrating!

Back to this happy picture and the book Sarah is reading. We found this copy at the library the other day. The illustrations in the book are very unusual – to the point of being distracting -- but if you look closely at them, they are actually quite clever and detailed. Trent probably just likes the fact that the story is about a spider. He likes bugs!