Spider-Man the Amazing Story
By: Catherine Saunders
Publication: January 1, 2006 by Dk Pub
32 pages
Genre: Children's, Level-1 Reader, Early Reader, Superhero
Source: Personal Library
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Goodreads description--Describes how Peter Parker became Spider-Man and tells what his amazing secret powers are.
DK rates Spider-Man The Amazing Story as a Level-1 Beginning to Read book. My son when he was reading level-1 books was always intimidated by this book. It is the average length of a level-1 reader, but I will say that some of the words were bigger than I was expecting from level-1, so I let him wait until he was reading level-2 books to kind of force this one on him. (For example: ordinary, heights, radioactive, exhibition, poison, fantastic, skyscrapers, wrestling, television, burglar, identity, costume, building, strength, Scorpion). If it were one or two words, I wouldn't have questioned it, but there was a challenging word for a level-1 reader on every page. We don't want to discourage readers even while pushing them a little.
The book tells the basic story of Spider-Man/Peter Parker. There's no new revelations. It talks about who Peter Parker was before, how he became Spider-Man, and how he changed after becoming Spider-Man. I liked that he has a story that goes from being picked on by others at school to using his new skills to save people and catch bad guys. What I didn't love and don't see as necessary in a book designed for roughly six-year-olds was the hyper sexualization of Mary Jane. She's wearing a lace-up shirt that emphasizes her breasts and narrows down to a taper into her pants were you can see flesh at her hip. In the next picture, She is clinging to Spider-Man while wearing low-rise jeans and a shirt that shows about 5+ inches of her belly, hip and back, all while showing the V of her abdominal muscles/hip bone and emphasizing the round shape of her butt. I just don't think this was necessary for a young children's book. Also, Aunt May looks positively diabolical and scary. These are some odd choices for a level-1 reader if you ask me.
I don't mind challenging a child to push beyond what they might think they are capable of, and I don't know how DK chooses to rate their leveled readers. I thought some of the words included were a little more challenging for a level-1 book. But the biggest draw back to me was the odd illustrations which depicted Aunt May almost as evil and Mary Jane as hyper-sexualized. Spider-Man The Amazing Story gets 2.5 Stars. Have you or your child read Spider-Man The Amazing Story? What did you think? Let me know!
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