Milton the Megastar

Emma Read's Milton the Megastar is a warm, funny spider adventure for 8 year olds about a very small celebrity who badly needs a holiday.

What happens

Milton is a false widow spider about the size of a raisin. He's famous now, after a campaign that made people less scared of spiders, and it's all got a bit much. Fundraisers, photo shoots, fan mail by the sack. His best friends, Ralph and Audrey, reckon the fame has gone to his head (they're not wrong).

So Milton webs himself into a hole in the attic and refuses to come out.

The one who gets through to him is Mini, a money spider so tiny she posted herself to him inside a cupcake. She's his number-one fan! Mini's way of helping him is really sweet. Nobody can do everything alone, she tells him, and his friends can help him catch his thought-flies.

Meanwhile Zoe, Milton's best human friend, is worn out by SATs and not sure how she feels about her dad getting married. Then Dad announces a holiday to Hawaii, where Milton's own dad is living. And of course Zoe smuggles the spiders along.

The airport scene is a treat. Zoe gets patted down at security with three spiders running up her sleeve and into her hair, trying desperately not to giggle!

Hawaii brings a hotel owned by a loud billionaire with his face on everything, a rumbling volcano and an earthquake at breakfast. There's also news that someone is bulldozing the rainforest where Milton's dad lives with a colony of happy-face spiders.

It's lovely how gently the book deals with feeling overwhelmed. Milton's gloomy thoughts are taken seriously, and so is Zoe's quiet worry about where she fits in her changing family. There are plenty of jokes about bug snacks along the way, and Ralph is a particular hoot.

This one follows an earlier Milton story, and the opening fills you in on what happened. One of his friends lost the sight in three of her eyes to bug spray, which is mentioned early on.

What to read next

If a spider hero is what they love, Malorie Blackman's Fangs is a fun one to follow with. It's told by a tarantula who is absolutely sure she's the most gorgeous spider in the universe.