- Hardcover: 32 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers; 1 edition (May 1 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0689801122
- ISBN-13: 978-0689801129
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 28.7 x 0.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 431 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#142,381 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #89 in Books > Children's Books > Arts & Music > Art > Fiction
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
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 on When Mama Comes Home Tonight, has outdone herself in Sophie'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
From Publishers Weekly
The team behind When Mama Comes Home Tonight here introduces readers to a spider who weaves with grace and serves others with courage. Dyer's gently tinted watercolors show Sophie as a blond with a human face and a perpetually tranquil expression (often sporting a beret); her eight-limbed body, with its two arms and six colorfully-stockinged legs, seems perfectly believable. Over time, the tender-hearted arachnid weaves garments she thinks the human boarders in the boardinghouse she inhabits will find useful, but she's always chased away before she can complete them. Tiring of her nomadic life, she discovers at last a quiet mother-to-be who is not afraid of spiders and who hasn't enough money for a baby blanket. Sophie, now nearing the end of her life, then starts on her last project: "She was down to the farthest corner of the blanket when she heard the cry of the young woman's newborn baby. And there, on that farthest corner, is where Sophie wove into the blanket her very own heart." Dyer paints Sophie in various spidery attitudes; in one painting, she dozes in a knitting basket, dwarfed by huge balls of yarn. Later, at work on her piŠce de r‚sistance, she crouches, silver-haired, beside a snowy windowpane. Spinelli and Dyer's story of devotion and generosity is as delicately woven as Sophie's own work. Ages 4-7.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Sophie was an artist. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Sophie was an artist. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
beautiful,
By
This review is from: Sophie's Masterpiece: A Spider's Tale (Paperback)
sophie the spider goes out into the world to do something great, to create a masterpiece. she settles herself in this boarding house and attempts to help out the people who live there, but none of them accept her gifts and scream at the sight of her. sophie eventually finds a new mother who doesn't scream at the sight of her, but welcomes her. the mother is poor though and sophie sees an old blanket covering the mother's baby. sophie decides to make a new blanket for the baby, her masterpiece. the pictures are beautiful and the story touching. a great addition to the bookshelf.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing book. Sure to be remembered.,
By pinto (new york) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Sophie's Masterpiece: A Spider's Tale (Hardcover)
I bought this book for my 5 year old, whose name is also Sophie. The book discusses the journey of a spider through the years and her last loving gift before expiring. If your children know about Charlotte's Web, then they understand that spiders do not live forever and that makes the ending a little softer. We loved this book. Buy it you will not be disappointed.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sweet story for children- single mothers will love this,
By
This review is from: Sophie's Masterpiece: A Spider's Tale (Hardcover)
Sophie is a sweet, caring, talented spider who weaves wonderful things for herself and the people she cares about. She says good-bye to her mother and strikes out on her own to beautify a boarding house. Her gifts are rejected by the staff there, sometimes even before she has a chance to spin them, but fortunately she discovers a young woman resident, knitting. The spider realises that she is knitting for a baby, but before a blanket can be knitted, she runs out of yarn. Sophie steps in to make the blanket for the baby, and the young woman accepts it with happiness.The illustrations are nice, even if the spider is a little silly with her 8 multi-color socks. The picture of the mother with her baby in a bassinet by her bed is sweet, as the mother sleeps with her hand on her baby. I can only imagine that soon the little one will be snuggled in bed with her mama and they will both be wrapped in the blanket made by the caring spider.
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