Johnny the spider has no friends because everyone is afraid of him. No one takes the time to get to know him and find out how kind, gentle and fun he can be. The idea here for me was two fold. 1. Don't be afraid of spiders and 2. Don't judge things by the way they look. The illustrations were great, they were large and colourful and definitely added to the story. The message is not quite as clear as in other books, so asking questions and discussing what is happening would be necessary if you want children to get the message. A good book for a primary classroom or a home library.

I read this book 3 times trying to understand what the author was trying to say???? I understand that it’s stated that “Johnny” is a very sweet spider but everyone is afraid of him because of the way that he looks. What I really disliked are the words that the other creatures including a bee, a worm, a butterfly used in response to seeing the spider. I wouldn’t want to introduce these words to my 2 year old granddaughters. Words such as “an awfully ugly creep”,
“a stinky, prickly beast” and “a fat slimeball”. In the end Johnny makes a cake and eats himself because no one will play/interact with him. So why would any parent want to read this book to a toddler???? The words in the book don’t explain why Johnny is sweet and nice and the expletives are definitely not what I’d want my little ones to hear. I will give it 1* for some cute illustrations.

I would not recommend this book.

This is a cute enough book about a hairy spider that all the other bugs are afraid of.

The point of the story is that he is a good person, despite his looks, and the book concludes with:
<blockquote>Johnny is a very sweet spider, but nobody knows that...
Except you!
So if you see Johnny around,
Give him a very big kiss.</blockquote>

Eh, no. I don't really want any pre-schoolers wandering around looking for hairy spiders to kiss, thank you very much.

While I think the point of the story, that you can't judge a book...spider by its looks, I think it could have been done better.

Perhaps it loses something in the translation from the Dutch.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

This is honestly a 3.5/5 for me. The book is cute and something that can be enjoyed by the toddlers and preschool children in your lives. The illustrations are the highlight for me. They are cute and funny and help enhance the storyline. So... The story is supposed to be about acceptance, being different and rejection. BUT it doesn't really do that. Children need to have storylines that work through and solve problems at this age. Essentially, the spider has no friends at the beginning of the book and no friends at the end of the book. All he has is rejection and cake. The storyline needs a reboot before I'd read it to our 1 & 4 year old.

I really enjoyed reading Johnny. I think this book is developmentally appropriate for a child that is around the preschool age. It shows children that we should not judge other people based on what they look like because they may actually be really nice people. We also should not judge insects, bugs, etc. Also, this teaches children to not be afraid of spiders. Well done.