Eric Carle’s books are cool because the illustrations are very distinctive and each book tends to sneak in more than one teaching point. The Very Busy Spider centres on the titular spider who is too busy spinning his web to entertain the other animals.

Besides learning about the importance of hard work and single-mindedness, the child also learns about the sounds made by the other animals when they try to distract the spider. There’s an additional sensory component to the book as well — the spider and its web are printed slightly raised, and tactile learners will enjoy exploring the pages with their fingers.

Here’re parts one and two of an episode of a retro BBC educational show on the theme of spiders, which features the book (fast forward to 6:19 for part one); part two features a great animated book reading of the book: