What's Everybuggy Reading: Spider
Head, Body, Legs
Retold by Won-Ldy Paye and Margaret H. Lippert
Illustrated by Julie Paschkis
Henry Holt and Company, 2002
I can't believe people only have two legs—I need at least six to show off my terrific drumming skills. But what if you didn’t have any legs at all? In this book, Head is all by himself, without any body or limbs! As body parts go, he’s got most of the goods (eyes, mouth, ears, HAIR), but he’s tired of just eating grass and mushrooms on the ground. So, when Arms comes along, they decide to team up to pick some cherries. Then they bump into Body and Legs, and everyone has to work together to reach a mango in a mango tree.
This story is from Liberia, a country in Africa. At first it was an oral tale, or a story spoken aloud instead of written down. My favorite part is when Head, Body, and Legs are trying to figure out how they best fit together, and Legs tries to stand on Head! In the end, they find that they can do a lot more together than apart (kind of like us buggies . . . but don’t Sonya I said that). Reading this has made me very thankful for all of my body parts—together they create one INCREDIBLE Spider.
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