Little gosling has been going through a phase of fascination with spider webs, looking for them every time he finds himself outside (“bebe wants to see a spider web”) and observing them for long minutes when we finally spot some. So, I thought he might enjoy Tim Hopgood’s “Walter’s wonderful web”. I wasn’t amiss. He loves it! We’ve had quite a few days of reading it over and over again. 

Walter is a spider with a particularly creative style, trying to fit in and spin webs just like his friends. However hard he tries, his webs come out differently and they all get blown away by the wind. He tries all the different shapes (triangle, square, rectangle, diamond, circle) and never gets discouraged; he learns something from each attempt and tries again and again, until… he combines all the shapes into a truly wonderful web! Such a simple concept and so many lessons to draw from it! 

Little gosling loves following Walter playing around with the different shapes. As it turns out, the book came at the perfect moment to fix the basic shapes in his mind. We play at guessing which shape Walter will attempt next and he counts the sides of each shape (“the circle has no sides”). He excitedly calls out the name of each shape every time mommy turns the page. We also play at spotting and identifying the different shapes that Walter spins into his final web. He’s less friends with the wind, though :). He’s generally on unfriendly terms with the wind, because he’s afraid it can blow his hat or cap away; so, every time the wind blows a bit stronger, he gets anxious, holds his hat with the hands and shouts “go away, wind!”