Janice M. Del Negro (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, November 2002 (Vol. 56, No. 3))
Oh, the poor inexperienced country fly! What chance does she have against the suave maneuverings of an arachnid seducer? Why, none at all, despite the attempted ghostly warnings of the Spider’s previous meals. DiTerlizzi’s reimagining of Howitt’s nineteenth-century cautionary poem is an illustrative tour de force, a stylistic homage to Gorey, Rackham, and Addams; the black-and-white illustrations have a junior-high-appealing slickness yet remarkable depth and detail, from border ornamentation to ironic visual touches. A Gothic dollhouse within the dusty attic of a Gothic mansion makes a clever scene for the Spider’s dastardly doings, and the depiction of the characters is imaginative as well. The oily-haired, mustachioed Spider (sort of a combination of Clark Gable and Peter Lorre) is the archetypal villain, a picture of sartorial splendor who changes costume from satin smoking jacket to tuxedo to great coat and top hat. The flapper fly has big innocent eyes, gauzy wings, and, ultimately, a too trusting demeanor: in the end she takes her place alongside Spider’s other ghostly victims. A concluding missive from Spider himself warns against expecting carnivores to go against their nature; brief bios of author Howitt and illustrator DiTerlizzi are appended. Masterful drafting and artful composition combine in this spookily sophisticated picture book that offers a macabrely funny look at trusting even the most persuasive of strangers. Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 2002, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2002, Simon, 36p, $16.95. Grades 4-7.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2002 (Vol. 70, No. 13))
Will you walk into my parlor?' / said the Spider to the Fly." Howitt's 1829 cautionary poem is realized here in full cinematic fashion. Delightfully ghoulish full-bleed black-and-white spreads are rendered in gouache and pencil, and reproduced in silver-and-black duotone, resulting in images that recall the slightly fuzzy-edged figures from old black-and-white horror movies. The typeface and occasional framed text pages heighten this effect by evoking silent-movie titles. The setting is a dustily gothic attic in which DiTerlizzi's (Alien and Possum: Friends No Matter What, p. 494, etc.) "camera" never rests, zooming in, out, up, and down in a dazzling series of perspectives as a top-hatted and bespatted spider romances a naïve flapper fly. Her protestations in the face of his overtures grow ever weaker, and despite the warnings of the ghostly figures of past victims (one brandishes a knife and fork while another points urgently at The Joy of Cooking Bugs), she goes to her inevitable doom. The illustrations embrace the primness of the poem-the wide-eyed fly is the very picture of a bygone innocence-but introduce a wealth of detail that adds a thick layer of humor. Aside from the aforementioned ghosts, evidence of the spider's predilections abounds: in his parlor, he relaxes with his feet up on a very dead ladybug stool with X's for eyes. A tongue-in-cheek "letter" from the spider follows the poem, in which he exhorts readers to "be advised that spiders are not the only hunters and bugs are not the only victims." This cautionary intrusion serves to explicate the metaphor for concretely minded readers, but the message is not likely to diminish their pleasure in the grisly doings one bit. 2002, Simon & Schuster, $16.95. Category: Picture book. Ages 5 to 9. Starred Review