Stink and the Hairy Scary Spider

Megan McDonald's Stink and the Hairy Scary Spider is a funny story for 7 year olds about a boy who REALLY doesn't like spiders.

What happens

Stink is on an origami kick. He folds his lunch-money dollar into a jumping frog, and it hops off into the long weeds at the bottom of the garden. When he goes to fetch it, something pink is waiting in the grass.

It's a spider. A giant, hairy one with pink toes and far too many eyes. Stink runs all the way up to his room and hides under a blanket.

His friend Webster reckons it's a pink-toe tarantula, which should be living in South America, not in Stink's back garden. It's probably somebody's escaped pet. So now it needs rescuing, by the one boy on the street who can't bear to look at it (he's already renamed that corner Cootie Corner).

What follows is a very funny attempt at a cure. Webster tries spider facts, spider jokes and a song in Spanish. He even tries the Charlotte Factor, which means reading Stink a whole chapter of Charlotte's Web.

After every go he asks if Stink is cured yet. Not yet!

Judy is no help at all. She makes a spider shadow with her fingers on his bedroom wall, just to see him jump.

Then Riley at school explains how she got over her own fear in baby steps. So the boys set about folding an origami tarantula (their first go looks like a four-legged pretzel).

Reading it is like being right inside Stink's head. It's full of sounds and silly made-up words. Hairy-scary. Freaky-deaky. Biggy-wiggy! Your reader will probably be saying them at the dinner table.

There's real science tucked in too, and Stink can't resist it. A spider no bigger than a pencil point? One that waves its rainbow bottom in the air and dances? Bit by bit the science nut in him starts to win against the scaredy-cat.

If you've got a child who's nervous of spiders, this could be a gentle way in. Just so you know, there are a couple of creepy-crawly nightmares, including one where a monster spider dangles over Stink's open mouth. They're played for laughs, but a very spider-shy reader might like you nearby.

This is one of the later Stink books, and it nods to a few of his earlier interests (guinea pigs, slime, Shakespeare). You don't need any of them to enjoy this one.

What to read next

Spiders aren't the only thing Stink has been scared of. If this one goes down well, try Stink and the Freaky Frog Freakout, where he's still refusing to put his face under the water at swimming lessons.