Bilbo Baggins, the protagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit
and one of the very first fictional characters I ever identified with,
is a man of many passions. One of them is tea, and throughout his long
life, his cozy hobbit hole serves as the setting for many a tea party
whose guests are the sort of folks rarely seen in the Shire. While he
may be accustomed to having dwarves and wizards dropping by for a drop, I
think I can pretty safely assert that the hobbit who christened his
dagger Sting by slaying spiders never asked an eight-legged guest to
visit Bad End. And if he were to receive such an invitation, I can’t
imagine he would have accepted it.
If the issuer had been as pleasant an arachnid as the title character in David Kirk’s Miss Spider’s Tea Party,
he would have been missing out. Miss Spider is a vibrant yellow spider
with bright green eyes and black legs with yellow polka dots. She comes
across as a mildly eccentric spinster, in more ways than one. All she
wants is a friend to whom she can be hospitable. Several friends if
possible, actually. The trouble is that all the insects she invites
think of spiders as bloodthirsty predators, and they assume she is
luring them into a trap. I don’t know where Miss Spider gets her
nourishment, unless cakes and tea satisfy all of her hunger, but
apparently such critters as fireflies, bees and moths are not on the
menu.
Kirk’s oil paintings pop on the page. The colors are
striking; each type of insect has distinct patterns and hues, making
them stand out all the more. The characters aren’t terribly lifelike;
they definitely have a cartoonish feel to them. Nonetheless, it’s clear
that Kirk has a passion for small crawling creatures. My favorite of his
insects are the soft moths, who stand in a line, glowing gently in the
gloom of a rainy night, their soft antennae quivering. The backdrops are
quite lovely, displaying the beauty of nature and of a well-kept tea
service. Most pages feature teacups, a teapot, cakes or decorative
flowers.
The book is written in rhyme, and the pleasingly
consistent rhythm and rhyme pattern is enhanced by the fact that this is
a counting book. Kirk throws a couple of curve balls by making most of
the numbers line up with members of a particular species but having a
couple deviate from that norm. For instance, we see five toy bugs and
eleven assorted guests. The book goes up to twelve and ends on an upbeat
note, with Miss Spider’s reputation as an excellent hostess assured.
Rhyme-wise, with the exception of the first page, everything follows an
AABB pattern. The book begins in ABCB; I assume this is just to give the
introductory page a bit of a set-off feel.
Miss Spider is
presented as a perfectly kind and considerate creature, and it is easy
to sympathize with her as she makes her repeated attempts to be
neighborly. “The cakes were fresh, the service gleamed, yet no one would
arrive, it seemed. Her company in no demand left her a cup for every
hand.” Granted, in the real world, those insects would have reason to
worry. Then again, what real spider slaves over a steaming teapot all
day? Enter Kirk’s whimsical world and meet a spider who values food and
cheer as much as Bilbo does and wants nothing more than to share her
bounty with others.
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